IRAQ: A US helicopter gunship fired at Iraqis milling around a burning US vehicle in a Baghdad street on yesterday, one of Iraq's bloodiest days for weeks in which at least 110 people died in clashes around the country.
The Health Ministry said the worst casualties were in Baghdad, where 37 were killed, and in Tal Afar near the Syrian border where 51 people died.
Elsewhere in the city, at least seven car bombs and various outbreaks of violence killed nine Iraqis, and insurgents fired over a dozen mortar bombs or rockets around the US-occupied Green Zone compound.
"We've seen a tremendous increase in the number of attacks," Brig Gen Erv Lessel, a US military spokesman, told Reuters.
South of Baghdad, three Polish soldiers were killed and three wounded when they were attacked near Hilla. In rebel-occupied Ramadi, west of Baghdad, US tanks and helicopters fired on a residential district, killing 10 Iraqis, including women and children, a doctor said. The US military had no immediate comment.
The surge in violence coincided with new American offensives to retake insurgent-held areas before elections due in January. Heavy fighting erupted in Haifa Street, a thoroughfare in central Baghdad notorious as a rebel stronghold. The crackle of gunfire echoed for several hours as US tanks and tank-like Bradley fighting vehicles moved into the area.
Witnesses said a US helicopter fired at a group of Iraqis crowded round a burning Bradley. Reuters Television images showed Iraqis running for cover shortly before a blast felled Al Arabiya producer Mazen Tomeizi. The Palestinian, who was working for the Dubai-based TV channel, died soon afterwards. Reuters cameraman Seif Fouad, who had been recording the scene, was also injured in the explosion.
"Mazen's blood was on my camera and face," Fouad said from his hospital bed. He said his friend screamed at him for help: "Seif, Seif! I'm going to die. I'm going to die." The US military said two of its helicopters opened fire after coming under attack from the crowd. Reuters television footage showed no evidence of shooting from the ground.
"As the helicopters flew over the burning Bradley they received small-arms fire from the insurgents in the vicinity of the vehicle," a military statement said.
"Clearly within the rules of engagement, the helicopters returned fire destroying some anti-Iraqi forces in the vicinity of the Bradley." Earlier, the US military had said a helicopter destroyed the vehicle "to prevent looting and harm to the Iraqi people" after four US soldiers were lightly wounded in the attack on the Bradley. Yesterday's violence began at dawn when insurgents fired at the heavily fortified Green Zone. Some rounds landed inside the compound, which also houses Iraq's interim government but there were no reports of casualties.
In other incidents, a car-bomb killed a senior police officer, another policeman and a 12-year-old boy on a highway west of Baghdad. A suspected suicide bomber tried to drive through the gates of Abu Ghraib prison but US troops shot and killed him, the military said. Three people were wounded. In western Baghdad, gunmen killed a policeman.
Interior Minister Mr Falah al-Naqib said much of the violence was related to security force raids which netted 16 fugitives. An Internet statement by the Tawhid and Jihad Group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who Washington says is behind much Iraq unrest, claimed responsibility for the violence. Another Internet statement from the previously unknown Islamic Jihad Organisation threatened that two kidnapped Italian aid workers would be killed unless Italian troops withdrew.
US-led forces have attacked several militant strongholds this month, bombing Falluja and moving into the northern town of Tal Afar, which the US army says is a haven for foreign fighters crossing from Syria.