Missiles Hit Government Building in Iraq, Killing Two

Missiles smuggled in a wooden cart of second-hand clothing slammed into the local government headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Saturday, killing at least two people and injuring 19 in another day of violence across Iraq in which two Iraqi civilians working for the U.S.-led coalition forces were also slain.

Police said insurgents in Mosul had launched two Katyusha missiles from a busy marketplace, apparently aiming at the office of the local governor. Two policemen were among the injured.

“I cannot see why they are targeting civilians. Does it make them feel good when they see a child suffering?” said police Lt. Col. Shamil Ahmad. He said police could not fire at the guerrillas because the area was so crowded, and they escaped.

In Fallouja, where a day earlier eight to 20 Iraqis and a U.S. Marine were killed in a daylong anti-guerrilla operation that involved 600 Marines, the streets were quiet as the Marines maintained positions along the highway and the entrance to town, and Iraqi families finished burying their dead.

Among the Iraqis killed, hospital officials said, were an 11-year-old boy and a freelance ABC television network cameraman from the Fallouja area who was shot while covering the fighting.

“The city today is really sad. There are funerals here and there, and the road to the hospital is very crowded with people visiting their families,” said Fadhil Badran, an academic in the town west of the Iraqi capital.

Many residents said the Marines were intimidating civilians and had shot recklessly during firefights with insurgents.

“I’m sitting at the funeral of my only son, who was killed because of the U.S. Marines’ harsh manner in dealing with civilians,” said Abbas Abdullah, 56. “They shot him in the head, and he died instantly.”

Abdul-Kareem Mohammed, a schoolteacher who also lost a relative in the fighting, said it was significant that the Marine crackdown on insurgents had come only three months before the U.S. was scheduled to hand over control of the nation to an interim Iraqi government.

“This is similar to a bull’s last lash as he is getting slaughtered,” he said.

U.S. military officials said the operation had successfully brought under control a major intersection and a nearby industrial park that had long been used as bases for attacking American troops. Marine leaders said they often did not return fire from the guerrillas, who were conducting hit-and-run attacks all day from the shelter of residential areas.

“We showed up ready for war. Yesterday was combat,” said Lt. Col. Gregg Olson, commanding officer of the Marine battalion that conducted the operation. “I’m very pleased with my Marines. They shot people that needed shooting. They refused to shoot when innocents were at risk. I wish the terrorists would do the same.”

In Tikrit, a 3-year-old boy was killed Friday night, residents said, when U.S. troops opened fire on the car in which he was riding.

Troops from the 1st Infantry Division fired at the vehicle after it failed to stop at a checkpoint. Marine Cpl. Craig Stowell, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition forces, said three injured Iraqis were taken to the hospital, and military authorities have no information on what happened to them after that.

“The 3-year-old could have been one of those three Iraqis injured,” he said.

In a separate incident, an Iraqi subcontractor working for the U.S. Agency for International Development was shot and killed by U.S. forces who mistakenly opened fire on his car in the city of Kirkuk, Reuters news agency reported. Military and USAID spokesmen said they could not confirm the incident.

A second civilian employee died in the southern city of Samawah when an unidentified gunman opened fire on a truck carrying supplies to Japanese troops, killing the driver.

In Baghdad, a roadside bomb went off as a convoy of sport utility vehicles passed, wounding five Iraqis, U.S. military officials said.

Residents of the poor neighborhood of Iskan near the old Baghdad airport were recovering from a mortar attack Friday night that wounded 13 people, seven of them seriously, apparently after an explosive aimed at U.S. troops based at the airport veered off course and plunged into the middle of the crowded district.

Neighbors had poured into the street to watch the rockets hitting the airport when the mortar slammed into the street, leaving a small crater and sending shrapnel flying into nearby courtyards.

“A child of about 2 years old had wounds all over his body,” said Mohammed Salem Mohammed, a 17-year-old neighbor.

“In the name of God, I’m 73, and I can’t judge who’s behind these attacks,” added another neighbor, Ibrahim Ahmed Auda. “And I can’t say that I think it will get any better. Probably for the next 10 years, the situation will be just as it is right now.”

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Times staff writer Tony Perry in Fallouja and special correspondents Roaa Ahmed Shawkat in Mosul and Hamid Sulaibi in Fallouja contributed to this report.