BAGHDAD, April 24: Forty-six people, seven US soldiers and 39 Iraqis were killed on Saturday and 70 people wounded in a spate of explosions and fierce clashes between guerillas and soldiers
from the US-led occupation forces.
The dead included a two-year-old boy in Fallujah, the scene this month of the most ferocious fighting between militiamen and US troops since the US-led invasion last year.
The highest, identical toll - 14 - was from four explosions in Baghdad's predominantly Shia slum of Sadr City and from a roadside bomb that destroyed a bus at Iskandriya, 50kms from the capital.
A US military official said the explosions in Baghdad may have involved "mortars or missiles fired by the Mehdi Army itself", referring to the militia of Shia leader Moqtada Sadr.
In Taji, just north of Baghdad, five US soldiers were killed and six more wounded, three of them critically, when a rocket was fired at their base at dawn, a spokeswoman said. The truck used to fire the rocket was destroyed by a US helicopter after the troops called for reinforcements, she said.
Another two US soldiers were killed and one wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack on a convoy near Kut.
The latest casualties brought to 718 the American military death toll since the invasion. The figure includes 520 killed in action.
In the capital's Sadr City, angry residents held up bloodied human remains to television cameras and said US helicopters had fired at the market.
"There was blood and bodies everywhere," said Bassam Abdul Rahim. The residents put a sign on a dead donkey saying: "This is Bush." One woman was killed in a separate attack in the same area when a mortar bomb hit her home. Her daughter was wounded.
The US military said it had no immediate information on the incidents in Sadr City. Moqtada Sadr, who US officials say is wanted by an Iraqi judge in connection with the murder of a rival, is holed up with his Mehdi Army militia in Najaf.
On Friday, he threatened to unleash suicide bombers if he was attacked by US forces poised just outside the city.
US forces say they are allowing time for Iraqi mediators to resolve the standoff.
FALLUJAH: Scores of US troops have died at Fallujah, where the two-year-old was killed and six more people were wounded when shelling and gunfire hit their house, according to a relative and a nurse.
"We were in our house when three shells fell on the neighbourhood, including one that hit the first floor and went through to the ground floor before exploding," said Hanan Abdel Baki, 27, herself wounded.
"We came out of the rubble with my brother and his son, Mortada, who died of a shrapnel wound to the neck, and my two daughters."
In another incident, four Iraqi policemen were killed when a booby-trapped car exploded near a US military base in the northern city of Tikrit. Twelve policemen and four civilians were wounded in the attack.
Five guerillas who were preparing an ambush near Karbala were killed by a Polish patrol early on Saturday morning.
Major Ralph Manos of the Polish contingent said the fighters were digging into positions and were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, machineguns and AK-47s and appeared to be preparing an ambush.
An Iraqi civilian was burnt alive in his vehicle after it came under fire near a base in Najaf, according to hospital sources.
Falah Hassan Abed, 27, was found in his burning Datsun pickup truck near the base located between Kufa and Najaf, according to medic Mohammed Abed al Kazem at Kufa's Mid-Euphrates Hospital. The base is manned by Spanish troops under Polish command.
A military spokesman said he had no information about the civilian, but said the base was attacked by eight mortar bombs and that troops returned fire.
In the south of the country, three Iraqis suspected of involvement in Wednesday's five suicide blasts in Basra and nearby Zubair that killed 74 people and wounded more than 160, were arrested in a truck with 3.5 tons of explosives, police said. -Reuters/AFP
