IRAQ: Iraq's interim government declared martial law on Sunday after insurgents killed 23 Iraqi policemen and set off blasts in the capital Baghdad in a fresh show of force before a planned US offensive on Falluja and Ramadi.
"We have decided to declare a state of emergency in all areas of Iraq, with the exception of the region of Kurdistan, for a period of 60 days," a spokesman for Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said yesterday.
He said the state of emergency, equivalent to martial law, was intended to ensure security ahead of the general elections that are planned for next January.
When Iraq was handed power by the US-led administration last June 28th, it immediately gave itself emergency powers. However, it has not used them so far despite a raging insurgency.
Moments after the announcement yesterday, a car bomb exploded near the house of Iraq's finance minister in central Baghdad. It was not immediately clear if Mr Adel Abdul Mahdi or anyone else had been hurt.
Insurgents have launched a wave of violence in central Iraq to show their muscle before US-led forces assault Falluja and Ramadi. For their part, the Americans say they are only awaiting the nod from Mr Allawi to attack.
Police sources said the gunmen killed 23 policemen in three separate attacks in Iraq. The bloodiest assault was in Haditha, 125 miles (200 km) northwest of the capital, where insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked a police station at dawn.
After a 90-minute battle in which six policemen were wounded, the attackers took 21 policemen to the K-3 oil pumping station area and shot them dead execution-style.
An Iraqi police officer was also killed and another wounded in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, police said. A suicide car bomber attacked a US convoy on the highway to Baghdad airport. A US spokesman could not confirm the report, however.
In Falluja, residents said fighting erupted on the eastern edge of the city near the highway leading to Baghdad after intense overnight air strikes and artillery shelling.
On Saturday, bombings and attacks on police stations killed 34 people, the majority of them police officers, in the city of Samarra, some 60 miles (100 km) north of Baghdad. Mr Allawi's office said 49 people were also wounded. All the casualties were men.
US troops enforced a round-the-clock curfew in Samarra and nearby villages on Sunday, bringing normal life to a standstill.
Local officials said they were asking the Americans to lift the curfew, at least briefly, so that people could go to mosques for prayer and to local shops to provide for basic needs. They also asked that US troops reopen roads around the sealed-off city to let stranded people return home.
The Samarra violence erupted barely a month after US and Iraqi forces stormed the city to dislodge rebels in what was then seen as a model for similar actions in Falluja and Ramadi.
The Haditha killings recalled last month's slaughter of 49 unarmed army recruits on a lonely road northeast of Baghdad.
The group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda ally, which already claimed responsibility for that killing, also said it was behind Saturday's car bombings in Samarra.
The US military says 1,000 to 6,000 fighters, including some loyal to Jordanian-born Mr Zarqawi, are holed up in Falluja.
Falluja residents said US air strikes interspersed with artillery shelling set off huge explosions from about 3 a.m. There was no word on casualties.
US attacks have killed dozens of guerrillas, but have failed to scare them away, a senior Marine commander said.
Regiment Commander Colonel Michael Shupp said escape routes out of the city were still open but rebels were not leaving despite days of fierce air and artillery bombardment.
About 450 troops from Britain's Black Watch regiment moved across the Euphrates river, southwest of Baghdad, in what a Sky News reporter embedded with them called a major redeployment.
-(Reuters)