MOSUL, Aug 4: Iraqi police and guerillas exchanged rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire in the streets of Mosul on Wednesday and at least 12 civilians were killed, police and hospital officials said.
"The police are shooting everywhere and there are RPGs being fired back," said a source in the city. "The fighting seems to be going on around a highway bridge and is very fierce. There have been five or six loud explosions."
"I can hear gunfire and RPGs in the Yarmook area to the northwest, in the city centre and in Al Razlani to the south," he said. Police tried to seal off the area and were fighting guerillas street-to-street near the highway. Local television said a curfew had been imposed in the city in the afternoon.
US troops were not believed to be involved in the clashes. The crack of small arms and assault rifles could be heard in the background, and at least two loud blasts sounded, possibly the noise of rocket-propelled grenades striking their target.
Mosul has seen frequent outbreaks of violence over the past year, most recently a car bomb attack outside a police station in the city centre last week that killed five people.
There have also been regular attacks on US troops stationed in and near the city, and occasional drive-by shootings in which Iraqi officials and US soldiers at checkpoints have been targeted.
HOSTAGES FREED: Four Jordanian truck drivers were released on Wednesday in the flash point city of Fallujah after a week in captivity as Ankara said two Turkish truckers also walked free after being held by militants who threatened to execute them.
But as the four Jordanian hostages were being handed over to representatives of their government in Fallujah, guerillas issued a statement warning all Jordanian truck drivers not to deliver goods to US-led foreign troops in Iraq.
"The Jordanian hostages have been freed and are in Jordanian hands," an official at the foreign ministry in Amman said. Mohammed Khleifat, Ahmad Abu Jaafar, Ahmad Sunukrot and Khaled Massoud were taken to the Jordanian hospital in Fallujah by self-styled Iraqi mediator Ibrahim Jassem after first stopping at a mosque east of the city to greet the advisory council for the mujahideen, the city's guerilla leaders.
"They are with me and they are in good health," he said. Three of the hostages said they were too tired to speak. "Please, I am really tired, I cannot even utter a word," said Mohammed Khleifat.
Only Abu Jaafar agreed to speak, saying he was in good health and looked forward to being reunited with his family. "We are heading to the embassy in Baghdad and hopefully home from there," he said.
The four were freed in Fallujah, west of the Iraqi capital, after a week in captivity, Abu Jafaar said. Abu Jaafar called his kidnappers "bandits that sully the reputation of the true resistance fighters", saying this explains the quick intervention by the mujahideen council to free them. -Reuters/AFP
