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Nighttime blasts shake Baghdad
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Two explosions were heard in Baghdad on Friday night, and the U.S. military sent up flares as it searched for the source of the blasts. One explosion was in the Al Mansour neighborhood of west Baghdad, a CNN cameraman reported. It is the same neighborhood in which the U.S. military targeted former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other senior Iraqi officials in April. A woman and her three children who were riding in a taxi suffered slight injuries in the second blast on the east side of the Tigris River near the People's Stadium, police said. Police said the bomb appeared to have been placed in a trash bin. A bomb went off in the same area about two weeks ago. Former defense chief surrendersAfter nearly a week of negotiations, Iraq's former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad surrendered Friday to U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, according to coalition officials and a mediator for the former minister. Speaking from Mosul, Dawood Bagistani, the mediator for Ahmad, told CNN that Ahmad turned himself over to Maj. Gen. David Petraeus with the "utmost respect." Bagistani said he hopes the Americans will keep their promise to remove Ahmad from U.S. Central Command's list of its 55 most wanted members of the former Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. Ahmad was number 27, the 8 of hearts. The former minister is in good health and spirits, and will be taken to Baghdad in the next few days, Bagistani said. 3 U.S. soldiers killed in ambush near TikritU.S. military personnel in Tikrit arrested 55 people after three soldiers from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division were killed in an ambush near the city, officials said Friday. The three soldiers were investigating a suspected launch site for rocket-propelled grenades when they were killed in an ambush near Tikrit Thursday night, U.S. military officials said. Two other soldiers were wounded by the small-arms fire, military officials said. The soldiers were with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division. The soldiers were attacked at about 10:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. EDT) while on the east side of the Tigris River, near one of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's former palaces. Tikrit was a stronghold of the Baath party when it ruled Iraq before the U.S. invasion. Also on Thursday, a U.S. Army 4th Infantry Division soldier was electrocuted as he hung power lines across a highway northwest of Baghdad, south of Ad Dujal, according to the Coalition Press Information Center. West of Baghdad at least two more U.S. soldiers were wounded Thursday in what may have been a single attack, military officials said. The soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were wounded when they came under small-arms fire and their Humvee drove over an improvised explosive device, said a coalition spokeswoman. She said more than one vehicle was involved.
In Khaldiya, east of Ramadi, townspeople who may have been describing the same attack said a convoy of vehicles was ambushed and a number of soldiers wounded in a gunbattle that lasted for hours. A celebration greeted word of the attack, with hundreds of Iraqis -- many carrying pictures of ousted leader Saddam Hussein -- firing weapons into the air, CNN correspondent Nic Robertson reported. Since the war in Iraq began in March, 301 U.S. forces have died -- 192 from hostile fire, 109 from non-hostile circumstances. Meanwhile, Sen Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, told The Associated Press that before the war, Iraq had posed "no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas .... This whole thing was a fraud." He called current Bush policy in Iraq "adrift" and charged that Bush officials had failed to account for $1.5 billion of the $4 billion the war costs each month, citing a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office. (Full story) French-German-UK summit SaturdayLeaders from France, Germany and the United Kingdom gather on Saturday for a summit at which they will try to settle their differences over the post-war transition -- six months after the U.S. led its invasion of Iraq. The talks between British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder come days before they meet President Bush at the United Nations in New York. Washington has been pushing for a U.N. resolution aimed at attracting more international financial and military help to ease the deadly burden faced by the U.S.-led occupation force in Iraq. But Bush said Thursday he did not expect Security Council agreement before he attends the General Assembly meeting. (Full story) Other developments• The Associated Press reported that a car carrying the Italian official heading up U.S. efforts to recover Iraq's looted antiquities was fired on in northern Iraq on Friday, and an interpreter killed, officials said in Rome. The official, Pietro Cordone, was unhurt. Cordone, who is the senior adviser for cultural affairs of the U.S. provisional authority and the top Italian diplomat in the country, was traveling on the road between Mosul and Tikrit when his car came under fire, said a Foreign Ministry official. (Full story) • An oil fire Thursday along the Iraqi-Turk pipeline in north-central Iraq is believed to be sabotage, an Iraqi official said. Nadhim Thanon, Iraq's chief engineer of the pipeline, said an explosion caused the fire north of Baiji, near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. Coalition officials said they were uncertain of the explosion's cause. Officials have blamed two pipeline fires since mid-August on sabotage. Iraqi officials, along with coalition forces from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit, are investigating and working to control the fire. • The oil fires came a day after the latest purported audiotape from Saddam, which an Arabic TV news network broadcast. The audiotape statement called on U.S. troops to leave Iraq or face continuing attacks. The statement, which aired Wednesday on Al-Arabiya, accused President Bush of lying about the reasons for the U.S.-led invasion that deposed Saddam in April. The statement also said an American withdrawal is "inevitable -- if not today, [then] tomorrow." The CIA is analyzing the audiotape, an official said. The agency expects to determine within a day or two whether the voice on the tape appears to be Saddam's, the official added. CNN's Walter Rodgers, Nic Robertson, Jason Bellini, Vivien Paulsen and David Ensor contributed to this report. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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