Some 8 Iraqis died in a bloody day; Aqila Hashemi dies, Washington asks for help
Some 8 Iraqi civilians were killed and other 13 injured after the market of the city of Baqoubam in north east Iraq was exposed to an explosion late evening yesterday ( Thursday).
An American military spokesman said that the market -- one of the popular markets in the city -- was bombarded by a mortar whose source was not identified.
In al-Musil, north of Iraq, 8 American soldiers were wounded -- three in critical health conditions -- when an explosive went off on the roadside when their vehicle passed by. An American military spokesman said that one US vehicle was destroyed and another damaged after it was exposed to fire by light weapons after which the attackers escaped.
An explosion also took place in Ake hotel in Baghdad used by a press team of the US NBC TV as headquarters. In this attack, a security guard of the Somali nationality was killed. Other two persons were wounded slightly. A witness said that the explosion resulted from a bomb placed near an electricity transformer outside the hotel. In another development, the interim governing council in Iraq announced mourning for three days over the death of council's member Aqila Hashemi of her wounds she had when unidentified persons shot her in front of her house in Baghdad last Saturday.
This fragile security condition in Iraq pushed the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to reduce the number of UN employees in Iraq. The decision comes after two explosions in the UN headquarters in Baghdad one of them of August 22 resulted in killing 22 persons.
The UN yesterday, announced it had decided to withdraw some 19 of its employees out of 105, stressing that it will withdraw more of them shortly.
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard described transferring the 10 UN employees to Amman as " provisional re-deployment of the UN employees in Iraq." He added that 42 UN employees will stay in Baghdad beside other 44 in northern Iraq.
At the UN headquarters in new York, the US Secretary Of State Colin Powell said that the UN Security Council permenant members have "some convergence" on a decision at the UN security council towards a resolution on Iraq. The British foreign office secretary Jack Straw defended the war decision on Iraq. Like the US, Straw rejected the idea supported by France and Germany for specific timetable for the return back of sovereignty to Iraq.
For his part, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said that the draft resolution concerning Iraq should be of a strategic nature rather than a tactical one. Highlighting the role played by the UN, Moussa ruled out sending of forces by the Arab and Islamic states to Iraq amid the current conditions and the vague vision.