BAGHDAD, September 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Bloody clashes erupted Saturday, September4 , between US-led forces and Iraqi fighters in the north of the turbulent country, only hours after the US forces raided an Iraqi army post and houses in Fallujah.
Twelve Iraqis were killed and sixty others injured when heavy clashes erupted Saturday in Tall Afar, west of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
"Civilians are being brought in into the hospital. We expect the number of casualties to increase," Reuters quoted an Iraqi doctor as saying.
A US UH- 58helicopter was also forced to land near Mosul with its two crew members aboard injured, a US military spokesman said.
He said it was not immediately clear what forced the helicopter to land.
Explosions and exchange of fire were still raging in the city with US helicopters hovering over the scene of the clashes.
And in Baghdad, three mortar shells hit the Green Zone which houses the US embassy and the Iraqi government, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.
Fallujah Hit Again
The ongoing clashes came a day after four Iraqis were killed and six others wounded in a US shelling of an Iraqi military camp in the restive Iraqi city of Fallujah.
"The shelling killed two soldiers and two civilians, and wounded six civilians, four of them seriously," AFP quoted Doctor Nabil Nuri of Fallujah General Hospital as saying.
A US tank approached an Iraqi military camp near the residential area of Shubada and opened fire at the camp.
"We were inside the camp and we were able to see the Americans and they could see us. All of a sudden a US tank started to fire on us," said First Lieutenant Ahmed Khudair.
The US military, for its part, denied such an attack has occurred against the Iraqi military camp.
The US forces have been targeting Fallujah under the pretext of being a hideout of followers of the Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who the US forces blame for several attacks against its forces in the war-torn country.
Twenty Iraqis, including three children were killed and six others injured Wednesday, September1 , in a US air strike on two buildings in Fallujah.
In April, at least 700 Iraqis, mostly women and children, were killed and 1500 others injured when the US occupation forces imposed a tight siege on the city and intensified air strikes on its densely-populated areas.
Assassination Bid
Meanwhile, the "Islamic Army in Iraq" claimed responsibility for the failed assassination bid on the life of Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress Party and former Governing Council member.
The militant group said in a video tape, aired by Al-Jazeera television that it also captured a bodyguard of Chalabi and killed three of his colleagues.
Chalabi has said Wednesday that he escaped a failed bid on his life in which two of his bodyguards were killed, two others wounded and another two missing.
"I was coming back from Najaf, where I had met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani the previous day, and when we reached Latifiya, a car started following us and opened fire on our convoy," Chalabi said.
Chalabi, a leading figure of the exiled opposition to Saddam Hussein before the US-led invasion, fell out of favor with his US protectors over suspicion of leaking intelligence to Iran.
Since his break with the United States and the interim government, Chalabi has been playing up his credentials - ahead of elections due in January 2005 - as an independent who stood up to the occupation authorities.