Date Posted: Thursday, June 24, 2004

BAQUBA, Iraq - Insurgents unleashed a wave of apparently coordinated attacks across four Iraqi cities, leaving 89 people dead just six days from the handover of power.

The fighting in Baquba, Fallujah, Mosul and Ramadi was the most serious challenge to the US-led coalition's efforts to restore stability since April, when Shiite Muslim radicals launched an uprising across central and southern Iraq.

The violence started in Baquba at dawn and spread like wildfire across the Sunni Muslim belt north and west from the capital, where the coalition has met armed resistance virtually since last year's invasion.

The health ministry put the death toll late Thursday at 85 dead and 320 wounded, excluding three dead US soldiers and a private security guard gunned down in Mosul.

"We suspect that these were coordinated attacks, simultaneous attacks, looking at the timeline," a senior coalition officer said on condition of anonymity.

The violence in Baquba, north of Baghdad, was claimed by the militant group of alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. The coalition officer expressed concern the unrest might signal "convergence" between his foreign Islamists and homegrown insurgents.

Iraq's interim prime minister Iyad Allawi vowed to crush the insurgency and blamed the radical group Ansar al-Islam for the mayhem in Mosul and loyalists of Saddam Hussein for the bloodshed elsewhere in the country.

But he warned of dark days ahead.

"We expect more escalation in the days ahead," Allawi told reporters.

The heaviest toll from the morning violence was in the main northern city of Mosul where 44 people were killed and 216 wounded, according to the health ministry figures.

Insurgents launched five separate car bomb attacks against police stations in little more than an hour, before engaging in fierce streetbattles with US troops backed by helicopters.

"Helicopters fired on insurgents who were shooting rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and Kalashnikovs," said police Captain Wadi Mohammed Abdullah.

The US military reported one soldier killed in the bombings and said a private security guard was also shot dead in the city.

Mosul was a major recruiting ground for Saddam's armed forces and has long been a hotbed of insurgency among the Sunni minority who dominated his regime.

The early morning assault in Baquba was launched by fighters of fugitive Jordanian Islamist Zarqawi, whose Tawhid wa al-Jihad (Unification and Holy War) group beheaded a South Korean hostage Tuesday.

Two US soldiers were killed along with as many as 20 Iraqis, more than half of them policemen, according to US military and hospital figures.

"The days are coming for attacks against the forces of occupation and those who collaborate with them," said a statement circulated by the assailants, who carried a Zarqawi banner.

"Anyone who resists these orders will be subject to death and destruction of their homes," the leaflets warned.

The fighting broke out after the first Muslim prayers of the day when men, wearing headscarves and armed with assault rifles and RPG launchers, assaulted the police station.

"A 1st Infantry Division patrol was attacked by anti-Iraqi forces killing two soldiers and wounding seven others in Baquba... at approximately 5:30 am (0130 GMT)," said Major Neil O'Brian.

The police chief's home was also torched and the town hall hit by mortar fire in an assault that involved at least 30 rebels, O'Brian said.

Medics at the town's hospital said 20 people were killed and 45 wounded in the fighting. The health ministry gave a death toll of 13.

A US military spokesman said warplanes dropped four 500-pound (220-kilogram) bombs on insurgent positions in Baquba.

US officers paid reluctant tribute to the sophistication of the dawn attack. "It's the first time that they've had this level of coordination," said Major Brian Paxton.

In Al-Anbar province, west of the capital, 20 people were killed and 76 wounded around its main towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, the health ministry said.

The US military said an agricultural centre had come under attack and possibly a police station.

A police officer later killed a would-be bomber as he tried to place a suitcase packed with explosives outside a police station, a witness said.

Southwest of Baghdad, four National Guardsmen were killed and three wounded when a man in a police uniform blew up a suitcase of explosives at a security post on the road to Hilla, said an official from the paramilitary force.

Further east around Fallujah, a US Cobra helicopter gunship was downed just outside the city where gunmen mounted checkpoints on the streets.

The chopper's two crew were rescued unharmed by marines following the emergency landing, the US military said.

Both Cobra gunships and warplanes raided suspected insurgent positions inside Fallujah where the sounds of RPGs, mortars and machine-gun fire echoed around the streets. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Residents were seen fleeing the city after the morning fighting.

Later, mosque loudspeakers announced a truce between the US marines and the insurgents, and the commander of the US-backed Fallujah Brigade, Mohammed Abdul Latif, said peace had been restored.

He blamed the fighting on combattants from outside Fallujah who ambushed a marine patrol and were mistaken for local residents.

In April, Fallujah was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting since last year's US-led invasion as US forces battled street to street with insurgents. Hundreds of people were killed.

The US military has launched two previous air strikes on the city in recent days, targeting what commanders said were suspected hideouts of Zarqawi's militants.

News Agencies