BAGHDAD, 9 July 2004 — A massive mortar barrage killed five US soldiers and an Iraqi guard north of the Iraqi capital yesterday as a missing US Marine surfaced in Beirut.
Insurgents detonated a car bomb and then hammered a military headquarters in the city of Samarra with a mortar barrage, leveling the building. American troops — backed by attack helicopters — then fanned out through the city to hunt down the attackers in clashes that lasted into the late afternoon. Tanks deployed in the streets. Smoke rose above a local mosque.
The violence also killed three civilians, medical officials said. As many as 44 people were wounded, including 20 US soldiers and four Iraqi guardsmen, the US military and hospital officials said.
A US Army Apache attack helicopter fired Hellfire missiles at a nearby building after the strike, killing four insurgents, the military said. American forces used radar to locate the source of the mortar fire and responded with 120-mm mortar rounds.
Outside Samarra, insurgents opened fire on a convoy of oil tanker trucks, killing two drivers, at least one of whom was Turkish, witnesses said.
In Baghdad, police said an official of Saddam’s ousted Baath party was killed when a bomb hidden in his car exploded outside a rope factory he owned in the south of the city. Baathists have frequently been murdered in revenge attacks.
In the northern city of Mosul, one policeman was killed and seven wounded when a roadside bomb exploded at a roundabout. Another was shot dead when insurgents fired at a police station, the US military said. Four suspected insurgents were detained.
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, the US Marine who disappeared in Iraq 18 days ago, arrived at the US Embassy in Beirut, where American officials are debriefing him, an embassy spokeswoman said. Hassoun is safe and appears to be in good health.
“We picked him up in Beirut,” said embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Wharton. She did not say who initiated the contact, but added that “obviously” there had been some coordination.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters: “He (Hassoun) made contact with us and arranged a place to meet, and we went to pick him up and brought him back to the embassy.”
— Additional input from agencies
