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U.S. forces depart house in northern Iraq where 8 suspected terrorists killed | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – U.S. forces left a cordoned area around a house in the northern city of Mosul on Monday where eight suspected al-Qaeda members died in a gunfight last weekend, and the White House said it was &#34highly unlikely&#34 that the terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

North of the capital, police said a car bomb targeting U.S. Humvees killed five civilians and wounded 12 bystanders in the town of Kanan, the latest in a series of attacks that have killed at least 145 Iraqi civilians over the last four days. The bombing occurred in the same province where suicide attackers killed dozens at two Shiite mosques and a funeral over the weekend.

Gunmen killed a Sunni cleric, Khalil Ibrahim, outside his home in the largely Shiite southern city of Basra, police Capt. Mushtaq Talib said. Ibrahim was a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of influential Sunni clerics that has been sharply critical of the Shiite-led government.

In Baghdad, three people, including one police officer, were killed by gunmen, police said. Another body with was found in a southern district of the capital with a note saying the man had been killed by insurgents, morgue officials said.

Over the weekend an American soldier near the capital and a Marine in the western town of Karmah were killed in separate insurgent attacks, the military said. A British soldier was also killed Sunday and four others wounded by a roadside bomb in Basra.

During the intense gunbattle with suspected al-Qaeda members on Saturday, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were also wounded, the U.S. military said.

On Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaeda operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house.

However, Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said Sunday that reports of al-Zarqawi”s death were &#34highly unlikely and not credible.&#34 Eyewitnesses in Mosul said the U.S. military, which had cordoned off the area around the two-story house, left the area early on Monday.

&#34We have no indication that Zarqawi was killed in this fight and we continue operations to search for him,&#34 said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman.

The elusive al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer. The U.S. military also said Sunday that 24 people, including another Marine and 15 civilians, were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in Haditha, west of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.

The three American deaths brought to at least 2,094 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC television”s &#34This Week&#34 that commanders” assessments will determine the pace of any military drawdown. About 160,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq as the country approaches parliamentary elections Dec. 15. The Pentagon has said it plans to scale back troop strength to its pre-election baseline of 138,000, depending on conditions. Rumsfeld said Iraqi security forces, currently at 212,000 troops, continue to grow.

Rumsfeld also said talk in the United States of a quick withdrawal from Iraq plays into the hands of the insurgents.

&#34The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder maybe all we have to do is wait and we”ll win. We can”t win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States,&#34

he told &#34Fox News Sunday.&#34

In Cairo, Egypt, Iraq”s president said Sunday he was ready for talks with anti-government opposition figures and members of Saddam Hussein”s outlawed Baath Party, and he called on the Sunni-led insurgency to lay down its arms and join the political process.

But President Jalal Talabani, attending an Arab League-sponsored reconciliation conference, insisted that the Iraqi government would not meet with Baath Party members who are participating in the Sunni-led insurgency.

&#34I want to listen to all Iraqis. I am committed to listen to them, even those who are criminals and are on trial,&#34 Talabani told reporters, but adding that he would only talk with insurgents if they put down their weapons.

In Baghdad, hundreds of Sunnis on Sunday demanded an end to the torture of detainees and called for the international community to pressure Iraqi and U.S. authorities to ensure that such abuse does not occur. Anger over detainee abuse has increased sharply since U.S.

troops found 173 detainees, mainly Sunnis and some malnourished and with torture marks on their bodies, at an Interior Ministry prison in Baghdad”s Jadriyah neighborhood.

Iraq”s Shiite-led government has promised an investigation and punishment for anyone guilty of torture.