US-Iraqi offensive continues: Suicide bomber kills 23 in Baghdad
KARABILA, June 19: Marine tanks shelled buildings in a desert outpost near the Syrian border in western Iraq and waged sporadic gunbattles on Sunday, the third day of a joint US-Iraqi offensive to flush out foreign fighters, bringing the total to 60 killed since the operation began on Friday.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed 23 people, many of them policemen or plain-clothes security guards, at a Baghdad restaurant just outside the Green Zone government compound on Sunday.
During the third day of operation, troops fired Hellfire missiles overnight at two homes where insurgents are said to be holed up after shooting mortars at coalition forces, said Lt-Col Tim Mundy, who commands the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment. The military said they believed four of five militants may have been killed in the counterattack.
At least three Americans have been wounded and 100 insurgents captured in the operation so far, military officials said.
SUICIDE ATTACK: In Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed 16 people, at a Baghdad restaurant just outside the Green Zone government compound.
A further 29 were wounded after the bomber walked into the restaurant at lunchtime on a street protected by police check- points and lying a few hundred metres (yards) from one of the main public entrances to the fortified Green Zone.
Six policemen were among the dead and 10 were wounded, a senior police source said, adding that the toll could rise as some remains had yet to be identified. Earlier, police sources, including officers at the scene, put the death toll at 20.
The Iraqi parliament was in session inside the vast compound, which once housed the presidential palace of Saddam Hussein, on the west bank of the Tigris river.
The restaurant, one of several serving grilled meats and kebabs along a strip of shaded sidewalk, was popular with police and other visitors to the Green Zone. A lively place, it was known as “Ibn Zanbour”, “Son of the Wasp”.
The attack came a day after US and Iraqi generals declared success in a month-long campaign known as Operation Lightning against insurgent car bomb factories and other Sunni rebel activities in the capital.
A wave of suicide car bombings contributed to the deaths of more than 1,000 Iraqis in the weeks following the formation of the government in late April. The generals said the number of suicide car bombings had been halved by operation but warned rebels were still capable of major attacks.
Near the scene of the attack is a main entrance for civilian employees working in the Green Zone, as well as for journalists and other visitors to the area, which also houses the US and British embassies.—AFP/ Reuters
