American forces pound suspected insurgent positions around Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. troops mounted air and ground attacks in the Iraqi capital Thursday for a second straight night, targeting suspected insurgent positions around Baghdad, the U.S. command said.

U.S. troops bombarded the al-Jazeera dye factory on Baghdad's outskirts which had been targeted the night before by an AC-130 gunship. The factory was believed to have been used by insurgents to store weapons and plan attacks, the command said.

The command said troops also launched air and ground operations against a Republican Guard facility used to fire on the coalition. The statement did not identify the facility, but Iraqi civilians reported heavy firing and other military activity in the western edge of the capital, which includes Baghdad International Airport.

American troops of the 1st Armored Division also attacked mortar positions around the city, U.S. officials said. Insurgents have used mortars to stage recent attacks against the headquarters compound of the U.S.-led coalition as well as other U.S. facilities.

Strong detonations could be heard in the centre of the city. The military confirmed they were part of the U.S. operation.

The heightened U.S. activity was part of Operation Iron Hammer, a new strategy aimed at taking the fight to the insurgents rather than simply responding to guerrilla attacks.

U.S. soldiers with loudspeakers drove through the neighbourhood around the al-Jazeera plant warning occupants to leave before the impending strike. In the evening, at least nine large calibre shells were fired into the empty plant, heavily damaging the structure.

"(U.S. President) George Bush said he wants to forge friendship between the Iraqi people and America. Is this how he wants build this friendship?" said the plant's owner, Waad Dakhel al-Boulani, as he watched the shelling. "The only weapon that they found inside was a Kalashnikov rifle for the guard."

Faced with a worsening security problem, coalition authorities said Thursday they were closing a major bridge over the Tigris River which reopened about two weeks ago for the first time since the city fell in April. Coalition spokesman Charles Heatly said the 14th of July Bridge would be closed indefinitely "following recent serious events."

The bridge was reopened Oct. 25 with a military ceremony complete with speeches and a brass band. Coalition officials hailed the move as a sign of improved security in the capital.

Elsewhere, numerous U.S. vehicles could be seen on the streets of Baghdad's Azamiyah district, a Sunni Muslim stronghold. Residents said they believed an American patrol had been attacked. There was no confirmation from the military.

Deputy Interior Minister Brig.-Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim said police arrested six people, including four foreigners, in operations late Thursday. He refused to identify the nationalities, but a policeman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they included a Syrian, a Yemeni and an Afghan.

Elsewhere, residents reported a series of explosions late Thursday in Fallujah and Khaldiyah west of the capital but there were no reports from the U.S. military.

Lt.-Col. George Krivo, the U.S. army spokesman in Iraq, said that similar operations against the insurgents would intensify and continue. "What you are seeing . . . are stepped-up offensive operations to push terrorists out of their lairs," he said.

In Tampa, Florida, Gen. John Abizaid said that the forces opposing the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq total no more than 5,000 insurgent fighters.

Abizaid, who heads the U.S. Central Command that covers the Middle East, said the largest and most dangerous portion of the opposition forces consists of loyalists of ousted president Saddam Hussein.

In Iraq's southern town of Nasiriyah, military and hospital officials said that the toll from Wednesday's suicide truck attack had killed 31 people and injured more than 80. Officials said the toll may rise because several of the wounded are not expected to survive.

The attack, the single deadliest strike against coalition troops since the war, has raised fears that Iraqi resistance groups were gradually extending their area of operations to include the country's mainly Shiite Muslim southern regions which have generally been well-disposed toward the U.S.-led coalition. The insurgency, which originated in the so-called Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital, has spread over the past several weeks to the northern city of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest.

The bombing prompted Portugal to send 128 elite police officers originally slated for Nasiriyah to Basra instead. A Japanese government spokesman indicated Tokyo will likely postpone sending troops to Iraq until sometime next year.

It was not immediately clear why the Italians had been targeted. Unlike the Americans, their Carabinieri - paramilitary police units with extensive peacekeeping experience in troublespots like Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan - have adopted a much more flexible policy in dealing with the local population and have almost never resorted to force since replacing U.S. marines in the city last summer.

Dozens of soldiers milled around the area Thursday, clearly stunned by the carnage. Mangled remains of about a dozen vehicles littered the area, including an armoured car whose steel plating had been sheered off by the blast.

U.S. Troops Arrest Copter Attack Suspects

By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writer

TIKRIT, Iraq - U.S. troops have arrested six Iraqis suspected in attacks against U.S. helicopters, including at least two allegedly involved in last week's downing of a Black Hawk that killed all six Americans on board, officials said Friday.

U.S. troops captured the six during a series of nighttime raids between Tuesday and Friday in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown.

The military said the first two are suspected of involvement in the Nov. 7 downing of the Black Hawk in Tikrit. Lt. Col. Steven Russel, a battalion commander with the 4th Infantry Division, said the other four were involved in attacks against American helicopters but did specify which ones.

"We were targeting individuals believed to be involved in the shooting down of U.S. aircraft, helicopters," Russel told The Associated Press Television News.

One of those arrested was a police officer issued a badge by coalition forces, he said.

The Black Hawk went down near the eastern bank of the Tigris River. The U.S. military has not disclosed an official cause, but the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq (news - web sites), Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, has said he believes the helicopter was shot down.

"The people we've detained have some connection to the incident or we would not have gone after them," Russell said. "We still have some important leads we're trying to follow."

Iraqi police have also detained a number of suspects in the Black Hawk incident independently of the American efforts, U.S. officials said.

Hamid Muzhir, the police chief of Salahuddin province which includes Tikrit, said he believed the Black Hawk was shot down by members of Saddam's security forces because of the considerable training needed to launch such an attack.

A soldier of U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division (Task Forse Ironhorse) jumps out from an APC during a night raid in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A soldier of U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division (Task Forse Ironhorse) guards a detained Iraqi man, during a night raid, after being taken from his home in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

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