IRAQ: A group with links to al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for co-ordinated attacks in five Iraqi cities yesterday which resulted in the deaths of about 100 people, with over 320 injured.
The attacks, which killed three US soldiers, come as the interim government prepared for the handover of power in less than a week. The scale of the attacks is an ominous sign of the strength and determination of insurgency despite months of fighting.
A US commander warned that the attacks would get worse as the June 30th deadline for the transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government nears.
A group led by a Jordanian militant, Abu Musab Zarqawi, who Washington says has links to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement on an Islamist website.
"Your brothers in Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad launched a wide assault in several governorates in the country which included strikes against the apostate police agents and spies, the Iraq army alongside their American brothers," it said.
"Your brothers in the martyrdom brigade also carried out several blessed operations, including five in Mosul on Iraqi police centres, two in Baquba and another in Ramadi," said the statement.
Insurgents struck Iraqi security services across troubled areas to the north and west of Baghdad, hitting police stations and other targets in Baghdad, Ramadi, Falluja, Mosul and Baquba.
The worst attack was in the city of Mosul where 62 people died and 220 were injured in a series of suicide car bombings. Explosions rocked the Iraqi police academy, two police stations and one of the town's main hospitals.
The bombs left smoking craters, twisted car wrecks and bodies burnt beyond recognition.
Lieut Arkan al-Juburi, a policeman who arrived late to work at the Sheikh Fatih station, said he was forced to leave the wounded behind when insurgents opened fire on him from inside the shattered building. "I just ran away. There was too much shooting for me to deal with," he said.
US forces with helicopter support were later required to retake the building under a hail of gunfire from insurgents in a nearby mosque. One soldier was killed during city-wide operations, the US military said.
Mosul's governor imposed a curfew from 8 p.m., and the city television urged people to stay indoors for the "general good."
In Baquba, the US military responded to attacks by dropping three 500lb bombs and strafing the area with machinegun fire from helicopters in an attempt to quell the insurgency. In Falluja a US Cobra helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing while conducting operations, the US military said.
"Coalition forces feel confident with the situation," said Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, the coalition's deputy operations chief.
A US convoy in Baquba was ambushed near the city centre, killing two US soldiers and wounding three others. US air-strikes then rained down across the city at nine in the morning, landing near a football stadium and a crowded road junction.
Insurgents roamed the city with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, seizing two police stations and destroying the home of the province's police chief.
"We hit a number of insurgent positions and weakened their supply chain," said Maj Neal O'Brien, a spokesman for the US 1st Infantry Division. Yesterday afternoon masked men in black were manning the main roads into the town.
At Baquba's main hospital officials said at least 25 people had been killed in two days of fighting.
The fighting in Baquba was mirrored in Ramadi, 80 miles to the west of the capital, where black-clad insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at two police stations, police said.
A US military official said between 20 and 30 insurgents were killed in Baguba.
In Baghdad, insurgents attacked four Iraqi police stations using mortars, hand grenades and AK-47s. Police fought back under the supervision of nearby US troops.
The US military official said a man carrying a suitcase or briefcase blew himself up in Baghdad and killed "a couple of people".
In Falluja, American positions around the city came under mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack. Witnesses claimed a US convoy was ambushed earlier as it drove into the city.
Zarqawi has emerged as one of the leaders of the resistance movement in Iraq, with the US military accusing him of masterminding a series of suicide bomb attacks. His group has claimed responsibility for the beheading of an American hostage, Mr Nicholas Berg, and Mr Kim Sun-il, a South Korean whose decapitated body was found on Tuesday between Baghdad and Falluja.
However, US commanders are wary of pinning Iraq's insurgency on a single figure. Foreign fighters, ex-Ba'athists, and radical Muslim groups provide a complex and deadly network of anti-Coalition fighters, they say.
With six days to go before the handover of sovereignty, Iraq's new government vowed it would crush the insurgency. "These are isolated incidents. We are going face them and we are going to defeat them and we are going to crush them," said Iraq's Prime Minister Mr Iyad Allawi said.