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Bomb Kills 14 Iraqis, 4 US Marines Gunned Down
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The crater left by the powerful blast (AFP)
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BAGHDAD,
July 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A car bomb killed 14
Iraqis and wounded 70 others Tuesday, July 6, in the central town of
Khalis, near Baqubah, as four US Marines were gunned down west of the
Iraqi capital.
Meanwhile,
three bombs exploded early Wednesday, July 7, near the residence and
offices of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, wounding six
Iraqis.
At
the time of the powerful explosion in Khalis, Iraqi victims were
gathered in a tent to mourn the son of the town's police director, who
was killed in an earlier attack. The explosion left a meter-wide
crater in the ground, Aljazeera satellite channel reported.
The
governor of Baqubah and municipality members, who were attending the
memorial service, narrowly escaped death as they left only half hour
before the blast.
TV
footage showed dismembered corpses lay on the floor as white plastic
chairs where mourners had been sitting were broken and twisted.
In
Al-Anbar province, meanwhile, which includes the restive towns of
Falluja and Ramadi, gunmen gunned down the son of the head of the city
council in Ramadi, 112 kilometres west of Baghdad.
Hussein
Amer Ali Suleiman, 18, was the younger son of Sheikh Amer Ali
Suleiman, the head of al-Dulaimi tribe, the biggest in Anbar.
A
series of deadly blasts have claimed the lives of hundreds of Iraqis
recently.
Iraqi
scholars said such indiscriminate attacks are strictly
prohibited in Islam, stressing in the meantime the
legitimacy of the unabated resistance operations against the US-led
occupation troops.
Two
car bombs killed
up to 40 Iraqis and wounded at least 22 others
Saturday, June 26, south of Baghdad.
Two
days earlier, at least 93 Iraqis were
killed and over 200 others injured in a series of
coordinated attacks and clashes in several Iraqi cities.
Iraqi
experts accused Monday, June 28, "foreign
hands" of the attacks against civilians, saying
they sought to stir unrest ahead of the
handover of power to Iraqis.
On
Tuesday, an Iraqi group calling itself the Salvation Movement
threatened to kill Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian Al-Qaeda member
accused in numerous attacks.
"This
is the last warning. If you don't stop, we will do to you what the
occupation forces have failed to do," said a masked gunmen who
appeared in a video with four other fighters aired by Al-Arabiya
satellite channel.
Repudiating
American claims, Fallujah resistance fighters have
repeatedly denied the presence of Zarqawi in their town, adding they
were simply defending their homeland against occupation forces.
Four
Marines Killed
Meanwhile,
four US Marines were killed Tuesday by Iraqi resistance fighters west
of Baghdad.
The
US military said the Marines were killed while "conducting
security and stability operations" in Al-Anbar province, which
includes the restive towns of Falluja and Ramadi, Reuters news agency
reported.
This
is the second attack on US occupation troops since the transfer of
power to the interim Iraqi government.
The
first occurred on June 29, killing
three Marines in the Iraqi capital.
The
Pentagon says 646 US servicemen have been killed in action in Iraq
since the start of the war to occupy oil-rich Iraq last year.
Allawi’s
HQ Bombed
On
Wednesday, July 7, three bombs went off near the headquarters of
Allawi.
"It
took place between 9:00 am and 9:15 am (0500-0515 GMT)," police
officer Saad Chanchul told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
One
of the devices struck a house about 20 meters from Allawi's political
party the Iraqi National Accord and his residence, which are about 500
meters away from the heavily fortified Green Zone, Chanchul added.
Another
devices exploded on the road near the residence, a second police
officer said.
The
explosion came two days after US occupation troops, acting on tips
from Allawi, dropped
two tons of bombs on the restive town of Fallujah,
killing at least 13 people.
US
soldiers in Humvees and Iraqi police had cordoned off the area.
About
an hour after the attack, another loud explosion rocked Baghdad, an
AFP reporter said. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear.
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