IRAQ: A suicide car-bomber attacked a US military base on the outskirts of Mosul, northern Iraq, yesterday, injuring 58 US soldiers and three Iraqis in a day of renewed violence.
It was the first big strike against US soldiers for several days, during which, according to commanders, attacks had dropped off considerably.
But yesterday Iraq's increasingly sophisticated guerrilla force showed it was still active. An explosion shortly after dawn at a Sunni mosque in Baghdad killed three Iraqis, then a suicide bomber blew himself up at a base near the capital, injuring two soldiers.
Later in the afternoon a US military helicopter made a forced landing after apparently being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade outside Fallujah, north of Baghdad, which has been at the heart of the resistance.
Yesterday's car-bomber approached a compound used by the 101st Airborne Division in Tal Afar, 50km west of Mosul, at 4.45 a.m.
Sentries shot at the car, forcing it to stop, and it exploded, the army said. The blast left a huge crater in the road and blew out windows. A school across the road was badly damaged.
"Soldiers guarding the compound engaged the oncoming car at an entry-control point, causing the vehicle to stop before detonating," a statement said. Forty-one soldiers were hurt, most suffering cuts from flying glass and broken bones.
Four suffered more serious injuries and were evacuated by helicopter. Three Iraqis were hurt, including a girl aged two.
Col Michael Linnington, commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne, which controls a large area of north-western Iraq, said he believed it had been a suicide mission.
"There were pieces of the individual all over the compound," he said. Wreckage from the car was scattered across a large area.
There has been a growing number of attacks on the US military in Mosul, which was calmer than most towns in the first months after the war. On Monday a soldier guarding a petrol station was shot dead, and at the weekend another was killed by a roadside bomb.
Yesterday afternoon a Kiowa observation helicopter was forced to make a "hard landing". The crew of two were not injured, but the helicopter was seen in flames and appeared to have been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
It was the latest in a string of attacks on helicopters which have claimed dozens of lives.
In recent weeks the US military has conducted offensive military operations against the guerrilla movement. November saw the highest number of American casualties since the war was declared over. The new operations appear to have reduced the number of attacks significantly, from as many as 50 a day to 18 last week.
But US generals believe the rate of attacks will rise again. Some have suggested that the guerrillas have been simply sizing up the new American operations.
In Baghdad the coalition provisional authority said a tribunal would be announced this week to prepare the first war crimes cases against Saddam Hussein's regime. This court will be led by Iraqis rather than UN or international judges, raising concern in human rights groups.
It will hear cases of war crime, genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as the specifically Iraqi crimes of misuse of judicial power, improper appropriation of assets and misuse of official authority to attack other Arab countries.
The first trials are unlikely to begin for several weeks.
Japan's cabinet yesterday approved a plan to dispatch troops to Iraq, a landmark decision setting the stage for what is likely to be the nation's biggest and most dangerous overseas military mission since the second World War.