BAGHDAD, 10 June 2004 — Mortar rounds fired at a base of Iraqi soldiers charged with maintaining security in Fallujah killed 12 Iraqis yesterday.
Ten soldiers were wounded in the attack, about one kilometer from Fallujah, reported Al-Arabiya television.
Locals have criticized the so-called “Fallujah Brigade”, which took over security duties in the restive western city following the withdrawal of US troops, for failing to restore order.
Four different convoys of trucks carrying supplies to coalition forces in Baghdad were attacked yesterday, Al-Jazeera television reported.
The satellite television network said a truck carrying supplies of food burned out after it was hit by rocket-propelled grenades in Baghdad’s Khadra neighborhood.
In two separate incidents, unknown assailants attacked trucks carrying supplies in the Zafarinya and Adel neighborhoods of the capital, the report said.
Unknown assailants launched a rocket attack on a fourth convoy of trucks carrying concrete blocks in the Dora region of southern Baghdad. Also in Baghdad, the US military reported an attack on a local official resulted in the deaths of two bodyguards, and severely injured the official.
Elsewhere, an oil pipeline in northern Iraq at Beiji, 100 kilometers west of Kirkuk, went up in flames after a remote-controlled bomb detonated, police sources said.
Kirkuk police chief Shirko Hakim told reporters that the pipeline, which lies near the Tigris River, caused an oil spill into the river.
Director-General of the Kirkuk Electricity Company Yaljin Omar Mohammed said that company operators stopped supply in a gas pipeline to Baghdad because of its proximity to the oil pipeline. With the fire receding, operators reactivated one of the three pipelines and the two others were expected to be operational in the following hours.
Meanwhile, one Iraqi civilian and one policeman were wounded when unknown assailants fired four mortar rounds at the Howeija police station and a US military base, 50 kilometers west of Kirkuk.
Al-Jazeera reported security sources as saying that two Iraqis died Tuesday when an explosive device went off on a street in Baqubah, a town around 40 kilometers north of the capital.
Meanwhile in Italy three Italian hostages freed in Iraq by coalition forces after more than 50 days of captivity returned home yesterday to a hero’s welcome.
Umberto Cupertino, Maurizio Agliana and Salvatore Stefio landed at Rome’s Ciampino military airport, where they were greeted by their families and a high-profile Italian government delegation amid scenes of joy and tears.
The three were working as private security guards for a US firm in Iraq when they were abducted on April 12 by an Iraqi armed group calling itself the Green Brigade.
A fourth Italian hostage, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, was killed by his kidnappers shortly after his abduction.
Along with a fourth hostage from Poland, the three Italians were freed on Tuesday by US Special Forces, in collaboration with the Polish military, in a commando raid somewhere south of Baghdad.
