Major Fighting In Ramadi Mosul Kut Al

Major Fighting in Ramadi, Mosul, Kut

al-Zaman says that a US soldier was killed Saturday at Babil, the site of ancient Babylon, where the US military has come under criticism for having damaged ancient artifacts while basing itself there.

Guerrillas killed a member of the governing council of Ninevah.

Sally Buzbee of AP reports that In Buhriz, near Baqubah, guerrillas attacked an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint, killing seven guardsmen.

In downtown Baghdad, guerrillas staged an attack on Iraqi National Guards, then disappeared. Fighting ensued on Haifa street.

There was more fighting in Mosul and Ramadi on Sunday between US troops and Sunni Arab guerrillas.

The guerrillas attacked the US base at Ramadi, which was shaken by five big explosions. There were clashes in the city center of Ramadi, and according to al-Zaman guerrillas killed a police lieutenant there, Salah al-Dulaimi. In Ramadi as well, the body of an Egyptian was found, who was killed for cooperating with the US, according to AP.

US troops also fired on a car that sped toward them in Samarra, which had ignored their warning shots, killing two.

In Irbil, a katyusha rocket struck a house near the regional Kurdistan parliament building, where high Kurdish officials were scheduled to meet.

South of Baghdad, guerillas attacked an Iraqi national guard patrol, injuring two guardsmen, one critically.

Near Kut in the south, gunmen shot down three Iraqi policemen in one attack. In another, they tossed a hand grendade at Iraqi National Guards, killing three officers. Then when people gathered for the funeral of one of the policemen, a suicide bomber waded into the crowd of mourners and blew himself up, killing seven others as well. Gunmen also shot dead an Iraqi translator working for a foreign company helping with water projects.

I cannot imagine what exactly is going on in Kut, and none of the Arabic newspapers has explained it. This is a heavily Shiite area, so the gunmen are not Sunni Baathists or Salafis. Disgruntled Marsh Arabs? Sadrists?

Many Iraqis responded angrily to the 10-year sentence meted out to US Army reservist Charles Graner for his role in torturing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, saying that it was too light given the gravity of the crime.

Some compared US military interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib to those of Saddam Hussein.