July 12, 2004

By Danica Kirka
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Marines clashed with guerrillas taking cover at a taxi stand in a stronghold of support for Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime, killing three people and wounding five, military and hospital officials said.
Insurgents clad in black attacked the Marines in the city of Ramadi on Saturday. The Marines returned fire blasting, the stand into a twisted pile of molten metal. Blood pooled on the asphalt. At least one child was hurt in the crossfire.

The deaths came the same day that four Marines died in a vehicle accident while conducting security operations in an area of western Iraq that has been a hotbed of anti-American resistance, the U.S. command said Sunday.

The Marines were killed in Anbar, a Sunni-dominated area west of the Iraqi capital that includes Ramadi as well as Fallujah and Qaim on the Syrian border. They were assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

North of the capital, insurgents blew up three liquor stores in Baqubah on Saturday, prompting concern Islamic militants may be trying to impose their strict interpretation of Islam there, witnesses said. The blasts killed a passing taxi driver, said Dr. Nassir Jawad from Baqubah General Hospital.

Also in Baqubah, insurgents detonated two roadside bombs Saturday as a U.S. patrols passed. Two soldiers and one civilian were wounded in the two incidents. All were evacuated to a combat hospital.

Iraq has been torn by a persistent insurgency since the fall of Saddam more than 14 months ago.

Meanwhile, the fate of captured Filipino worker Angelo dela Cruz remained unclear. His captors had demanded the Philippines withdraw its 51-member force from Iraq or dela Cruz would be killed. They gave a Saturday deadline. Another 4,100 Filipinos work as key contractors on U.S. bases.

A spokesman for Philippine President Gloria Macapagal said Saturday the country’s small peacekeeping contingent would be withdrawn when its stint ends Aug. 20, though no decision had been made on whether to send replacements.

Later, officials in the Philippines said dela Cruz was about to be freed.

But a diplomat familiar with the talks in Baghdad remained cautious, and the Al-Jazeera television station, which broadcast the original tape showing dela Cruz surrounded by armed men, said it received a statement Saturday night from the group denying he had been freed and calling him a “prisoner of war.”

“We are still negotiating,” a diplomat familiar with the talks said Sunday. “We don’t to derail the process of negotiation.”

In the statement, the group called itself the Iraqi Islamic Army — Khaled bin Al-Waleed Corps, and gave the Philippines an extension until Sunday night, according to Al-Jazeera.

In a video aired earlier Saturday on Al-Jazeera, the hostage urged his countrymen not to come to the country.

“I advise you not to come to Iraq because there are a lot of problems, and the Iraqi police won’t be able to protect you, like what happened to me,” he said, according to the announcer.

Meanwhile, Bulgaria expressed hope that two Bulgarian truck drivers also kidnapped by militants here were still alive.

Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad group threatened to kill the men if the United States did not release all Iraqi detainees — an ultimatum that has expired.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi suggested Saturday that the men were still alive, though he warned the information was “unconfirmed.”

President Bush telephoned Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov on Saturday to discuss the hostage situation.

Bush offered to assist but refused to negotiate with terrorists, the White House said. Parvanov affirmed Bulgaria’s strong commitment to Iraq.

Elsewhere, insurgents slashed the throat of a translator working for American forces in Kirkuk, the latest of a series of assaults on professionals supporting the multinational forces here.

The body of Hewah Omar, 28, was dumped by the side of a river that flows through the middle of the city.

“His throat was cut by a knife, and he was stabbed in the chest seven times,” said Col. Sarhat Qader, a senior police official.