Baghdad blasts rock churches, hospital, hotel; US troops ring Fallujah

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Bomb blasts rocked five churches in Baghdad and a medic died when a mortar round exploded at a hospital, as US and Iraqi troops ringed the rebel hub of Fallujah amid hopes for new peace talks.
On the second day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, Iraq's tiny Christian community was in shock after seemingly coordinated attacks, which caused widespread damage but no casualties.
A bomb hit the church of Saint Joseph at about 4:00 am (0100 GMT) followed by similar explosions over the next two hours outside four other churches.
Flames engulfed the Roman Catholic St. George's church in the central Baghdad district of Karrada, leaving its wood-built sanctuary charred.
"My family and I fled from the fire," said the church caretaker Nabil Jamil as he wandered around the debris. "Thanks God, there were no wounded or dead."
Monsignor Emmanuel Delly, the patriarch of the Chaldean Church, expressed the fears of his beleagured community, who were the victims of a similar attack at the start of August in which 10 people died and 50 were injured.
"If the government is powerless, what can we do," Delly said. "We call on them (the attackers) not to touch the holy sites."
The violence resumed hours later when a mortar round struck the garden of a cardiac hospital in Baghdad, killing one medic and wounding nine other staff, said an official at the Ibn el-Bitar hospital.
People rushed to the blast site to check on relatives who worked there as police secured the area, an AFP reporter said.
Down the road a similar scene was repeated as an artillery shell hit a car park between a hotel and another church. Five cars were damaged but no one was injured.
Iraq's Christian community makes up just three percent of the majority Muslim population.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 US and Iraqi troops surrounded the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, for a second straight day in the hunt for Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi -- Iraq's most wanted man who is blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq.
A US military spokesman refused to say if marines would enter the city, which has been the target of near nightly air raids by US planes, noting that another bomb was dropped on a house Friday night. There was no word on casualties.
An eerie calm has descended on the city, where locals said they were free to come and go despite US soldiers erecting checkpoints at different entrances.
In a glimmer of hope for a peaceful resolution, local cleric Sheikh Abdul Hamid Jadua indicated that a Fallujah delegation was ready to return to the bargaining table with the government, but conditioned this on a halt to US air strikes and the release of fellow negotiator Sheikh Khaled Hamoud.
The delegation stopped negotiating Thursday amid what it saw as provocative comments by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that Fallujah must surrender Zarqawi or face invasion.
For its part, the interim goverment declared itself open to fresh talks.
"I always say our doors, our hands are open to all of our people whether in Fallujah, Mosul or anywhere else," said national security advisor Kassem Daoud.
Washington on Friday named Zarqawi's Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group a terrorist organization and imposed sanctions on it, although it was unclear what effect, if any, these could have on the group.
A British military spokesman said the United States had asked Britain for its thoughts on sending troops on a "particular operation" in Iraq, but sought to play down the significance by adding that this was a common occurrence.
Britain's Channel Four television had reported that Washington wants London to deploy soldiers in more volatile parts of Iraq, as a new offensive on insurgent-held Fallujah looms. The British troops are currently based in the southern city of Basra.
Zarqawi's group, which is allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, is accused of some of the deadliest car bombings and a string of kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq.
The US army was meanwhile dealing with an apparent revolt by soldiers in Iraq who refused to go on a mission they considered too dangerous.
The army said it was investigating why 19 members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company based at Tallil failed to appear for a fuel delivery mission on Wednesday morning.
The incident came to light through media reports of cell phone calls placed by members of the company to stateside relatives.
Sergeant Patrick McCook told his wife, Patricia, that he and his comrades had refused to go on the refueling convoy because they considered it too dangerous.
"They refused to go because the trucks they were driving were not adequately protected," Patricia McCook told CBS News. "They don't have bulletproof protection on the vehicles, they don't go fast at all."
The army denied that the soldiers had been arrested or detained.
"Initial indication is that the soldiers scheduled for the convoy mission raised some valid concerns and the command is addressing them," the army said in a statement issued in Baghdad.
A US soldier died of wounds suffered in a car bombing in the northern city of Mosul on Friday while in neighbouring Kirkuk, an Iraqi Kurd working for the education ministry was shot dead. Northeast of Baghdad three Iraqis from the same family were killed in a roadside bomb blast.
The media rights group Reporters Without Borders said an Iraqi press photographer working for a European agency was shot dead outside his home in Kirkuk.
His death brings the total number of journalists and other media workers killed in Iraq since the beginning of the US-led invasion to 44, according to the group.
US troops arrested a Sunni Muslim cleric accused of preaching holy war (jihad), the military said.