At Least Five Occupation Soldiers Killed In Iraq

An American military spokesman said five soldiers died when their convoy hit a roadside bomb in al-Anbar province west of the capital Baghdad, declining to give their nationalities, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The vast majority of troops operating in al-Anbar province are U.S. Marines, remarked both Reuters and Aljazeera.

This is the worst single incident involving occupation forces since a U.S. military helicopter was downed near Fallujah, also in al-Anbar, on January 8, killing all nine aboard.

Foreigners Killed
In another attack in Fallujah, gunmen opened fire on two four-wheel-drive cars, killing some of the occupants and setting the vehicles ablaze, local police.

An AFP correspondent saw two charred bodies lying on the ground near the two vehicles.

Witness Hammadi al-Issawi, 28, said a third vehicle within the convoy evacuated more casualties, some badly burnt.

The two vehicles were stopped and attacked as they were traveling in opposite directions through the center of Fallujah.

Some locals told Reuters up to six people in the cars had been killed, others that there were three or four dead.

Reuters Television footage from Falluja showed residents dancing around the vehicles waving their arms in the air and making the victory sign.

The vehicles were similar to those used by the U.S.-led occupation, and some of their occupants were reported to be wearing flak-jackets.

In Baaquba, north of Baghdad, four policemen and six civilians were wounded in a car bomb explosion that shook residents awake early Wednesday, police said.

No human remains were found in the vehicle which blew up, a policeman on the scene told AFP.

In the northern city of Mosul, mortar fire targeted a U.S. military base during the night, said an officer of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) paramilitary forces but there was no confirmation from the U.S. military.

Police Brutality
In another development, about 200 students demonstrated outside city hall in the central Shiite holy city of An-Najaf, protesting recent police "repressive acts".

On Tuesday, March 30, two policemen, a Spanish soldier and two demonstrators were hurt and 30 people arrested in An-Najaf when hundreds of jobless protesters attacked the governor’s office and police cars with rocks, police said.

An-Najaf and several other cities south of Baghdad have witnessed protests by the unemployed.

Frustrations among Iraq’s unemployed boiled over into violence Wednesday, October 1, with job-seekers throwing rocks, setting cars ablaze and exchanging gunfire with the authorities outside a security guard hiring office in central Baghdad.

The Anglo-American occupation of Iraq has left some 10 million Iraqis in both the private and public sectors jobless, after the U.S. decision to dissolve the defense, interior and information ministries.

On June 9, hundreds of unemployed Iraqis demonstrated in the southern capital of Basra against the employment of Asian oil workers by U.S. companies.