Insurgents lash back in Mosul

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, November 14, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Insurgents stormed two police stations Sunday in the strife-ridden city of Mosul, killing at least six Iraqi troops as attacks spread throughout Sunni Muslim areas after the U.S.-led assault on Fallujah.

Marines found the mutilated body of a Western woman as they searched for militants still holding out in Fallujah, the former Sunni insurgent stronghold. Briton Margaret Hassan, 59, director of CARE international in Iraq, and Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a Polish-born longtime resident of Iraq, were abducted last month, but the body could not be identified without further tests.

At least 38 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the fighting in Fallujah. The number of U.S. troops wounded is now 275, though more than 60 have returned to duty. U.S. officials estimated more than 1,200 insurgents were killed in the weeklong fighting.

“The perception of Fallujah being a safe haven for terrorists, that perception and the reality of it will be completely wiped off before the conclusion of this operation,” said Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

U.S. forces have spread throughout the city although it could take several more days of fighting before the city is secured, American officials said. U.S. forces on Sunday attacked a bunker complex in southern Fallujah where they discovered a network of tunnels filled with weapons, an antiaircraft artillery gun, bunk beds, a truck and a suspected weapons cache, according to a statement from the U.S. military.

U.S. aircraft attacked insurgents hiding “in numerous buildings throughout the city,” the statement added.

Fighting in Fallujah ebbed, but insurgent attacks appeared to escalate elsewhere in Sunni Muslim areas of central and northern Iraq.

Saboteurs set fire Sunday to four oil wells in Iraq’s northern fields, setting off successive explosions in Khabbaza, oil officials said.

Heavy explosions rattled central Baghdad near the Palestine and Sheraton hotels after nightfall Sunday. About an hour later, about four more large explosions rocked the Green Zone, headquarters of the U.S. and Iraqi leadership. At least one private security guard was killed.

More than a dozen insurgents attacked the Polish Embassy in Baghdad with automatic weapons Sunday, and embassy guards returned fire in an exchange that lasted for a half hour, a Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Warsaw. No one was reported killed or wounded.

In Mosul, where an uprising broke out last week in support of the Fallujah defenders, militants raided two police stations, killing at least six Iraqi National Guards and wounding three others. One insurgent was killed before Iraqi security forces regained control of both stations, witnesses said.

Insurgents also set fire to the governor’s house, destroying it and damaging his car in northern Mosul.

A gunbattle erupted Sunday between militants and U.S. troops in the main market in the northern town of Beiji, killing at least six people and wounding 20 others, according to witnesses.

A dozen explosions rocked an American base in the western part of Ramadi, about 30 miles west of Fallujah, after insurgents fired missiles. Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke billowing from the base.