Australian soldiers targeted as violence leaves 11 dead in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Australian soldiers came under fire in Baghdad as a wave of explosions ripped through Iraq leaving at least 11 people dead, a day after the discovery of dozens of army cadets executed by militants.
The fresh violence came as the United Nations` nuclear watchdog confirmed that nearly 400 tonnes of conventional explosives that could be used in missiles have disappeared from an arms depot in Iraq that was not being patrolled.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has pledged to restore order, using force if necessary, with the help of the US-led military ahead of elections promised by January.
Underscoring his formidable challenge, attackers detonated a car laden with explosives as an Australian convoy passed down a residential district near Australia`s embassy in Baghdad.
The morning blast, close to a local school, killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded at least 16 other people, including three Australian soldiers and four Iraqi children.
An Australian defence spokesman described the incident as the first direct attack on Australian vehicles in the country.
"A security detachment patrol of armoured vehicles was engaged by an improvised explosive device that was hidden in a vehicle," Brigadier Mike Hannan told Australian national radio.
Canberra along with London and Washington are the founding members of the coalition that led the invasion of Iraq last year but has a smaller number of troops on the ground.
Rebels struck again in the northern city of Mosul in a double car bombing against local-authority targets left three people dead and four wounded.
The first bomb tore through a garage in the governorate building of Nineveh province, killing three and wounding one, while about 20 minutes later, a second car bomb targeted a member of an Iraqi liason office with the US-led military, officials said.
General Motaz Faqaa escaped unscathed but three security guards were injured.
The attacks were another rude awakening for Iraqis after the weekend massacre of 49 new army recruits, who were gunned down execution-style in eastern Iraq, and a twin suicide car bombing against Iraqi police and national guards that killed 20.
Desperate to crush the insurgency, US and Iraqi forces have targetted rebel strongholds in recent weeks, with their sights now set on the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah that has been the target of near daily US air strikes.
Outgunned militarily, insurgents have turned to guerrilla warfare, targetting the country`s security forces, foreign workers and US-led troops in a relentless wave of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
The slaughter of the unarmed soldiers was claimed by a group linked to Iraq`s most wanted man, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to use Fallujah as an operating base.
The statement by the Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers which was formerly known as the Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) could not be independently verified.
On Monday, the Iraqi authorities said they were investigating the massacre, while preparations were underway to bury the dead, who came from Iraq`s Shiite-dominated south.
In other violence, at least three people were killed in clashes between rebels and US troops in the western city of Ramadi.
One US soldier was killed and five others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a convoy in western Baghdad, the US military said.
And an Iraqi national guard was killed as he tried to disarm a bomb placed near an Iraqi national guard post -- another major target of the insurgency -- to the north of Baquba.
Iraq`s vital oil industry also suffered as saboteurs blew up a section of an oil pipeline in northern Iraq, sparking a fire but failing to halt exports, police said.
In a worrying development, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed a media report that Iraq`s interim government had voiced concern over the disappearance of nearly 400 tonnes of conventional explosives that could be used in missiles.
The New York Times reported that the explosives disappeared from the sprawling Al-Qaqaa facility in Iraq, which "was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man`s land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday."
Separately, a few hundred disabled Iraqis pleaded with the kidnappers of British-Iraqi aid director Margaret Hassan to set her free saying their lives have worsened since she was abducted a week ago.

10/25/2004 - 12:51 GMT - AFP