Bomb Blasts in Tikrit, Haglaniyah, Mosul Produce Dozens of Casualties

AP reports on violence in Iraq Tuesday:

' A car bomb exploded near police headquarters in the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, witnesses said. More than a dozen cars were set ablaze after the massive blast . . . Meanwhile, clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents in the so-called Sunni triangle of death killed six Iraqis and left dozens injured in Heet, according to Dr. Mohammed al-Hadithi . . . In Haqlaniyah, 135 miles northwest of the capital, U.S. forces and Iraqi troops fought insurgents throughout the day, the military said. American aircraft fired cannon rounds and dropped bombs to help a Marine patrol that came under small arms and heavy machine-gun fire . . . Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier was killed when assailants set off a bomb near Tuz, 105 miles north of Baghdad. In Baghdad, gunmen assassinated the director of the Iraqi Trade Ministry, Saad Abbas Hassan, as he drove down a road . . . And in the northern city of Mosul, insurgents set off a car bomb, killing two people and wounding 14, the U.S. military said. Also in Mosul, U.S. soldiers shot and killed a civilian in a pickup truck who came too close to their convoy, policeman Ahmed Rashid said . . . '

In addition, guerrillas assassinated Khalil Ali Shukri, a Dawa Party official in Baquba, according to al-Zaman. Prospective prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari is from the Dawa Party. A military officer was assassinated in Baghdad on Haifa Street, and a contractor in Salman Pak.