Forces uncover bomb facility

BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. forces uncovered a facility where car and roadside bombs were made, and detained 51 people believed linked to an insurgent cell, U.S. military officials said today.

Soldiers from the 1st Battalion 8th Cavalry Regiment discovered four vehicles that were to be potentially used as car bombs and several assembled roadside bombs.

Also found were several automatic weapons, ammunition, explosives and $8,750.

“These discoveries deal a blow to anti-Iraqi forces,” Lt. Col. James Hutton, the spokesman for the 1st Cavalry, said in a news release. It was not clear when the operations were carried out.

The detainees are all suspected of being members of an insurgent cell responsible for placing roadside bombs that have killed two U.S. soldiers in the area.

On Friday, Jordan and Yemen offered to send troops to help shore up security – albeit with conditions that may prevent those deployments. No Arab nation has contributed soldiers to the U.S.-led coalition.

Meanwhile, kidnappers freed three hostages – one Pakistani and two Turks whose employer agreed to quit doing business with the U.S. military, officials said.

In Baghdad, guerrillas launched at least three separate rocket strikes but caused little serious damage. The guerrillas using a makeshift launcher fired rockets into the heart of the city, shaking the capital and hitting two hotel compounds frequented by foreigners.

American forces also clashed with insurgents in the northern city of Beji, killing two and wounding a third.

In the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, a U.S. Marine was killed Friday and a second died of wounds suffered in a separate engagement the previous day, the military said. At least 853 U.S. service members have died since the war began in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.

In one of the attacks, insurgents parked a van fitted with a shoddy rocket launcher near Firdous Square, the roundabout where U.S. forces helped Iraqis topple a statue of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003.

One rocket fired from the van slammed into the Sheraton Hotel, frequented by foreign journalists and security contractors, but caused only minor damage. A second rocket hit a car parked in the compound of the Baghdad Hotel, also used by foreigners.

The Karbala Brigades, a previously unknown militant group, claimed responsibility for attacking the Sheraton in a videotaped message sent to the Al-Jazeera television station. The statement apparently referred to Friday’s attack.

The U.S. military said the attackers were trying to hit the nearby Green Zone, a heavily guarded stretch of territory along the Tigris River that is home to the U.S. Embassy and key offices of Iraq’s new government.

A strike in western Baghdad’s Yarmouk neighborhood hit the front gate of the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters, blowing out windows and wounding a guard, the U.S. military said.

The attacks were the latest in an insurgent campaign that has continued despite Monday’s handover of sovereignty from the former U.S. occupation authority and the public appearance of Saddam and other former regime members before an Iraqi court on Thursday.

Yemen Foreign Ministry officials said their country was willing to send peacekeepers to Iraq but only if they’re under U.N. control – an idea that already has been rejected by U.S. and U.N. leaders.

About 160,000 foreign troops, mostly American, have stayed on after the handover under a U.N. Security Council resolution that gives them responsibility for security. Though deployed under a U.N. mandate, they operate as a coalition led by U.S. commanders.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Thursday he was willing to send troops to Iraq if the government requested its help.

In Beji, five insurgents attacked a U.S. 1st Infantry Division patrol with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, Maj. Neal O’Brien told the Associated Press. The patrol returned fire, killing one of the attackers and wounding another, he said.

Later Friday, about dozen insurgents fired on U.S. troops at a police station in Beji, 120 miles north of Baghdad. A gun battle ensued and soldiers killed one insurgent firing from a nearby rooftop, O’Brien said.

The two Turks had been missing since June 1. They included Soner Sercali, an air conditioning repairman, and his co-worker Murat Kizil. The Turkish Embassy confirmed their release and said no ransom was paid.

The kidnappers freed the men after their employer, Kayteks, issued a statement promising to stop working in Iraq.

Pakistani hostage Amjad Hafeez was freed by insurgents who had threatened to behead him unless Pakistan’s president closed Pakistan’s embassy in Iraq and ordered all his countrymen home.

The Pakistani government gave no details about how or why Hafeez was freed.