BAGHDAD — A car bomb exploded yesterday in front of a police station in Baqouba, killing the driver and at least two other persons in the second fatal bombing in the central Iraqi city in a week.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military announced the capture of the suspected paymaster for guerrillas west of Baghdad but missed a bigger prize — former Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.
The bombing was part of a flurry of attacks, with U.S. officials yesterday reporting three road ambushes and a hand grenade assault. The U.S. death toll rose to 496 with the death of a 101st Airborne Division soldier in an unspecified “nonhostile incident.”
In one ambush, gunmen opened fire on a U.S. patrol and the troops fired back, killing eight Iraqis. In another, assailants attacked a U.S. contractor’s convoy, killing two civilian drivers and wounding two other persons, both Americans.
The attack in Baqouba occurred about 8:20 a.m. when a motorist tried to drive into the walled compound of a police station in the city, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Police Col. Salam Omar said guards opened fire after the driver ignored orders to stop. He then detonated the vehicle, killing himself and two others and wounding about 30 people, including some policemen, Iraqi civil defense officers and civilian bystanders. The blast damaged the wall around the compound and shattered windows at the station and nearby shops.
Tension has mounted in Baqouba since a bomb exploded Friday outside a Shi’ite mosque, killing five persons. Police said a second bomb was found hours earlier in a car parked near another Shi’ite mosque but was defused.
In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, U.S. troops captured Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, a former regional Ba’ath Party chairman and militia commander who was No. 54 on the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted figures, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said yesterday.
Al-Muhammad, who was arrested Sunday, was “an enabler” for many attacks against the U.S.-led coalition, Gen. Kimmitt said.
Meanwhile, tests by Danish and American specialists did not indicate the presence of any chemical warfare agent in mortar shells unearthed by Danish troops in southern Iraq, but conclusive word will come only from a lab in Idaho.
Earlier examinations had indicated a blister agent was in the shells, which apparently date to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
The U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group conducted tests on five of 36 shells found Friday and all came up negative, the Danish army said Wednesday in a statement from Copenhagen. Those results contradicted Danish and British field tests that were positive for a blister agent.
Danish troops found the 120 mm shells outside a village near Qurnah in southern Iraq, 250 miles southeast of Baghdad. Villagers there had reported fighting during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war that could have included the use of chemical weapons.
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