NYT lead story: Attacks in 5 Iraqi Cities Leave...100 Dead

[DeepModem Mom]

Attacks in 5 Iraqi Cities Leave More Than 100 Dead
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: June 25, 2004


BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 24 — Fighting raged in five cities across Iraq on Thursday as insurgents unleashed a surge of apparently coordinated attacks that killed at least 105 people and wounded hundreds more.

Plumes of smoke boiled up from the streets of Falluja, Ramadi, Baquba, Mosul and Baghdad as masked insurgents battled American and Iraqi security forces in what several officials said could be the opening salvo in a violent push to derail the June 30 transfer of sovereignty.

"We were expecting such an escalation, and we will witness more in the next few weeks," said Iraq's prime minister, Iyad Allawi, whom terrorists have threatened to assassinate. "We will deal with it and crush it."

The heaviest carnage on Thursday was in Mosul, in northern Iraq, where a battery of car bombs leveled two police stations and ripped into a police academy and a hospital, killing at least 62 people, including an American soldier....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/international/middleeast/25IRAQ.html