IRAQ: Another day of violence in Iraq as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki prepares for crisis meeting with US President George W Bush in Jordan

Wednesday (November 29) was another day of violence across Iraq as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki prepared to hold crisis talks with U.S. President George W. Bush in neighbouring Jordan. In the restive city of Ramadi, witnesses reported on Tuesday (November 28) that clashes erupted between gunmen and the U.S. forces. They said that the U.S. forces raided a local market in the area and shot dead two civilians but they did give further details about the incident. The U.S. forces for their part did not report about the incident. Also on Tuesday, the US military said that six Iraqis, including five girls ranging in age from infant to teenager, were killed during a firefight between U.S. soldiers and suspected insurgents in western Iraq, the U.S. military said. A U.S. patrol in Ramadi, a Sunni insurgent stronghold, fired tank rounds, machine gun and small arms fire at two men who were shooting from the roof of a house at U.S. soldiers clearing a roadside bomb, the military said in a statement. After the battle the U.S. patrol found six bodies inside the house. Another female found wounded at the scene refused treatment. There were no U.S. casualties. In Falluja, a U.S. convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, but there was no immediate details of any casualties. In a village near Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said its forces killed eight insurgents and two women early on Wednesday (November 29) in ground assault supported by an air strike. Iraqi police said a U.S.-Iraqi force killed eight civilians. Police said the dead were a man and his three sons and a neighbouring couple, their son and daughter. Baquba is a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town that has seen frequent attacks by insurgents "American foot patrol came to the area and after ten minutes there were shooting, heavy shooting with airplanes, artillery and different kinds of weapons. All the province heard of this attack," said an eyewitness from the town of Baquba. The sound of blasts was heard frequently on Wednesday in Baghdad, a city that is still on edge since a vehicle curfew was lifted on Monday (November 27). In one bombing, in al-Nahdha area in Baghdad a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed two policemen and wounded seven people, including two policemen, an Interior Ministry source said. Another blast targeted a bus station killing two and wounded seven. Earlier a suicide car bomber attacked an Iraqi police convoy in Aqaba bin Nafea Square in central Baghdad, seriously wounding three officers. Iraqi soldiers killed three insurgents and arrested 28 others during the past 24 hours in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said. Maliki flew into Amman, safe from Baghdad's rampant insecurity, several hours before Bush was due to reach the Jordanian capital from a NATO summit in Latvia. Both men said they would discuss transferring more control to Iraqi security forces and the role other countries in the region could play to stem bloodshed and chaos in Iraq.

ITN Source | November 29, 2006

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