US and Iraqi forces clashed with resistance fighters north of Baghdad early Sunday, killing 13 of them, the U.S. military said. ThE fighting took place in Buhriz, located around 5 kilometer south of the city of Baqouba.
U.S. and Iraqi National Guard forces entered Buhriz about 3:30 a.m. to search an area of palm groves and destroyed a suspected staging ground used by fighters for attacks on occupation and Iraqi troops, said Maj. Neal O'Brien, spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division.
In the course of the raid, resistance fighters reportedly attacked Iraqi National Guard forces with small arms before the fight spilled over to the southern side of Buhriz, O'Brien told The AP.
Six hours later, the Iraqi resistance fighters began firing mortars, and the U.S. responded with mortar fire of its own, he said.
In the meantime, in the capital city of Baghdad, gunmen killed a former regional official for Saddam Hussein's government and his son in a drive-by shooting and a suspected car bomb shook the city.
The blast took place about 10 a.m. on a major east-west road in the western part of the city, military spokesman Lt. Col. Jim Hutton said. There were no reports of casualties, he said.
Brig. Khaled Dawoud, former head of the Nahyia district in Baghdad, was driving with his son in the southern Baghdad suburb of al-Dora when fighters pulled up in another car and opened fire, said Lt. Mustafa Abdullah al-Dulaimi, a police officer in the neighborhood. The attackers fled, al-Dulaimi said.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, a spate of violence killed five people, police said. An Iraqi policeman was slain by unknown gunmen in a passing car Sunday while waiting for a ride home after his shift guarding a pipeline, said Col. Sarhad Qadir, of the Kirkuk police.
According to The AP, assailants sprayed gunfire at the house of a Kurdish family in a predominantly Arab area in southern Kirkuk, killing a woman and two of her sons and injuring her daughter, Qadir said.
In another attack, armed men fatally shot Shirwan Jilal, a fighter with the pro-U.S. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, as he walked home late Saturda, Qadir said.
Gunmen also attacked police forces patrolling in southern Kirkuk on Sunday, injuring an officer, he said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
