85 killed as blasts rock Iraqi cities

Insurgents killed 85 people and wounded 320 in a wave of attacks across Iraq on Thursday, the Health Ministry said. Three US soldiers were a...

Insurgents killed 85 people and wounded 320 in a wave of attacks across Iraq on Thursday, the Health Ministry said. Three US soldiers were among those killed in assaults on Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and the mainly Sunni Muslim cities of Baquba, Falluja, Ramadi and Mosul.

A group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who Washington says has links to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement on an Islamist website. ‘‘Your brothers in Jama’at Al-Tawhid and Jihad launched a wide assault in several governorates in the country, which included strikes against the apostate police agents and spies, the Iraq Army alongside their American brothers,’’ it said.

‘‘Your brothers in the martyrdom brigade also carried out several blessed operations, including five in Mosul on Iraqi police centres, two in Baquba and another in Ramadi,’’ said the statement, indicating that suicide bombers had carried out attacks in Mosul and elsewhere.

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Interim PM Iyad Allawi blamed a group linked to Zarqawi for multiple car bombings that killed 44 people and wounded 216 in Mosul.

But he told a news conference that ‘‘remnants of the ex-regime’’, meaning Baathists loyal to ousted President Saddam Hussein, were behind attacks in Ramadi and Baquba. However, witnesses said some of the black-clad gunmen who attacked a police station and government buildings in Baquba, 60 km northwest of Baghdad, proclaimed loyalty to Zarqawi and wore yellow headbands linking them to his group. It appeared to be the first time members of Zarqawi’s underground network had surfaced in street combat.

At least seven large explosions shook Mosul and local television ordered residents to stay at home. Police blocked all major roads and announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew. The US military said an American soldier had been killed and three wounded in the blasts. A security guard was killed in a separate attack on a private security firm. Two more US soldiers were killed and seven wounded in Baquba. The Health Ministry said 13 people had been killed and 15 wounded. —(Reuters)