BAGHDAD, 22 March 2004 — The coalition headquarters in Baghdad came under rocket attack yesterday, hours after two US soldiers were killed in Iraq and global anti-war protests marked the anniversary of the US-led invasion.
Anti-US guerrillas fired rockets into the middle of Baghdad in a rare daylight salvo yesterday, killing two civilians and wounding six people, including an American soldier, a US military spokesman said.
“Three rockets impacted in central Baghdad yesterday morning,” a US Army spokesman said. He said one rocket landed in the Green Zone, one of Saddam’s former palace complexes west of the Tigris River, where the US-led administration is based, and two outside.
“We have reports of two Iraqi civilians killed and five injured. One US soldier was slightly injured,” the spokesman said. The rocket that hit the Green Zone landed in “Freedom Rest”, a 1st Armored Division rest and recreation area. The missiles used were probably 127-mm rockets, he said.
A rocket attack on Saturday night killed two US soldiers and wounded seven near the flash point town of Fallujah.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of US Army operations in Iraq, said three rockets hit a base near the town west of Baghdad and two landed outside. The wounded comprised six from the army and one from the navy.
The deaths brought to 395 the number of US troops killed in action since the Iraq conflict began a year ago. US political and military efforts now focus on preparations for a handover of sovereignty to Iraqis at the end of June.
In other attacks yesterday, a bomb exploded at a police station in Khalis, north of Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding two. A roadside bomb intended for a US convoy hurt a municipal worker in the northern city of Mosul, police said. Guerrillas have repeatedly fired rockets and mortars at the Green Zone, but usually under cover of darkness.
The US military, which blames the insurgency on Saddam loyalists and foreign militants, said rocket attacks were on the rise, though still less deadly to its forces than improvised bombs, small arms fire and mortars.
It said in a statement its foes would intensify attacks in the runup to the planned June 30 handover of power to Iraqis to “harass Coalition Forces and gain media attention”.
The insurgency in Iraq and the devastating train bombings in Madrid have shaken the nerves of some US allies, but Japan urged the world yesterday to persevere in efforts to rebuild Iraq and offered another $206 million in humanitarian aid.
“If we let Iraq go now, it will become a failed nation,” Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said.
