Posted on 03/05/2004 2:49:40 AM PST by kattracks
Six or seven blasts hit Baghdad's main airport just hours before Iraqi leaders were due to sign an interim constitution, but there were no reports of casualties, a US army spokesman said."I can confirm that there were six to seven impacts in the northern part of Baghdad International Airport at between 10:00 am and 10:15 am (0700-0715 GMT)," the spokesman said.
He was unable to say what explosive devices had caused the blasts at the airport, where the US Army is based, and said an investigation was underway.
"There are no reports of damage or injuries at this time," the spokesman said.
The explosions disrupted what has been billed by Iraq's US-picked interim Governing Council to be an historic day as they prepared to sign a temporary constitution to lay the foundations for a democratic and united Iraq.
The signing ceremony is due to begin at 4:00 pm at the former conference hall of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
Earlier a US military spokesman said soldiers from the US-led coalition in Iraq shot dead three Iraqi attackers in a gun fight in Mosul overnight, without sustaining any injuries.
It was unclear whether the troops had been American, the spokesman added.
"We are still trying to find out more details," he said, about the attack in the Iraqi city 370 kilometres (240 miles) north of Baghdad.
In the gun battle, "three were killed on the Iraqi side and no injuries on the coalition side," said the spokesman.
Local police said five Iraqis were killed and 12 others injured in Mosul's industrial zone when US troops returned fire after coming under attack from a group of unidentified gunmen.
"Three were armed with assault rifles. They began shooting at a patrol and the Americans responded with heavy gunfire," police officer Sulaiman Yussef Bakr said.
He could not immediately say whether any civilians had been hurt.
Also Friday a British newspaper reported that former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix believes the US-led war in Iraq was illegal.
Blix told the London-based Independent daily that a second United Nations resolution explicitly authorising the use of force would have been required to make the invasion of Iraq last March lawful.
"I don't buy the argument the war was legalised by the Iraqi violation of earlier resolutions," Blix said.
Blix attacked reasoning by Attorney General Peter Goldsmith, the British government's top legal adviser, that UN resolution 1441 authorised the use of force because it revived earlier resolutions passed after the first Gulf war.
Blix said that while it was possible to argue that Iraq had violated UN resolutions adopted since 1991, the "ownership" of the resolutions rested with the entire 15-member UN Security Council and not with individual states.
"It's the Security Council that is party to the ceasefire (after the first Gulf war), not the UK and US individually, and therefore it is the Council that has ownership of the ceasefire, in my interpretation."
Asked whether in his view a second resolution authorising force should have been adopted, Blix replied: "Oh yes."
He dismissed calls for British Prime Minister Blair to resign or apologise over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, cited by London as the main justification for war.
But Blix suggested that Blair may have been wounded politically.
"Some people say (US President George W.) Bush and Blair should be put before a tribunal and I say that you have the punishment in the political field here," Blix told the Independent.
"Their credibility has been affected by this: Bush too lost some credibility."
Eslewhere nine Iraqis were killed in a string of attacks across the war-torn country as NATO promised to send troops if it gets a request from the Iraqi government due to take over on July 1.
Polish troops also said they had captured seven al-Qaeda suspects and Karbala law enforcement officials accused the US-supervised interior ministry of short supplying before this week's devastating bombings at a religious festival.
Three Iraqis were killed and at least five wounded in a rocket attack by unknown assailants in southwest Baghdad late Thursday, police and witnesses said.
The target of the attack was not immediately clear, but an AFP journalist said the rocket exploded about 100 metres (yards) from a US military base.
Violence also dogged the northern city of Mosul, where three policemen and two civilians were killed in a rocket and automatic rifle attack, police said.
Another Iraqi police officer was killed and two others seriously wounded in the northern city of Kirkuk when gunmen attacked their patrol, police said.
A US soldier was also wounded near Baquba, in central Iraq, when a homemade bomb exploded near his convoy.
Earlier, Polish troops said they had arrested seven al-Qaeda suspects since mid-January, including two in the past week, in the countdown to the rampage on the Shiite Muslim holy city during the Ashura pilgrimage.
The Polish military spokesman conceded the US-led coalition had anticipated Tuesday's spectacular bombings, but stuck to a security plan putting Iraqi forces in charge of the city for the major holiday.
As fears of fresh violence ran high on the eve of the signing of a temporary constitution, Karbala law enforcement officials venting anger at being undermanned ahead of Ashura.
They charged that the interior ministry had failed to meet a request for weapons, cars and radios.
The series of bombings in the city and the capital killed 173 people and wounded 553 others, interim health minister Khdeir Abbas said Thursday, giving an updated toll.
In Warsaw, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he would send soldiers to Iraq if Baghdad requested them and that the United Nations should mandate a stabilisation force for the country under sovereign self-rule.
"After the 1st of July, it is up to the sovereign Iraqi government to decide" whether to ask NATO to send troops, he said.
The United States is to formally end the occupation of Iraq and hand over power to a sovereign government on June 30, although it will retain a military presence in the country.
The farther you read, the further to the left it slants.
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