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05 November 2004
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Friday
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21 Ramazan 1425
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Three UK troops among eight killed in Iraq
FALLUJAH, Nov 4: US artillery shelled Fallujah, on Thursday after overnight air and tank attacks killed five people in Iraq's most defiant city, while three Brish soldiers were killed.
"I very much regret that I can confirm to the House (of Commons) that in an attack on British forces in the Black Watch area of operations, we have suffered a number of casualties, including three fatalities," Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram told parliament.
Elsewhere in Iraq, a car bomb explosion killed four people and wounded 15 outside the town council building in Al Dujail, north of Baghdad. An eyewitness said the car exploded outside the council building in the town, some 50kms from Baghdad.
Two of the building's security guards were among the dead.
Underlining a rapid deterioration of security in Iraq, one of the few remaining international aid groups said it was quitting the country because of the "extreme risk" to aid workers.
"It has become impossible...to guarantee an acceptable level of security for our staff, be they foreign or Iraqi," Medecins sans Frontieres general director Gorik Ooms said in Belgium.
Another major aid group, Care International, also ceased its operations last month after the British-Iraqi woman running them was kidnapped. She is still being held by an unnamed group.
The interim Iraqi government and its US backers are battling to capture guerilla-controlled cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi and pacify the country to prepare for elections due in January.
But they face a mounting resistance and kidnappings aimed at driving out US-led forces and foreign workers.
The US military said two air raids hit Fallujah after midnight, destroying "fighting barricades" prepared by militants in the northeast and southeast of the city.
The strikes followed what witnesses called an intense half- hour bombardment of eastern and northwestern areas by AC-130 planes and tanks that shook the city on Wednesday night.
ARTILLERY STRIKES: US artillery was back in action during the day. A woman was seriously wounded and a teenage girl lost a leg in earlier air strikes on Wednesday, hospital staff said.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, now in Europe, has not publicly given the go-ahead for the storming of Fallujah and Ramadi, but the marines say they only need the order from him and newly re-elected President George Bush.-Agencies
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