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U.S., Iraq troops wounded in 2 car bombings near Falluiah By FISNIKABRASHI THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two car bombs wounded American and Iraqi troops west of the capital Sunday and a few hours later the U.S. military announced the arrest of a senior Iraqi National Guard commander on suspicion of ties to insurgents, underscoring the challenges to building a strong Iraq security service capable of restoring stability. The two attackers who died in the twin blasts tried to ram their cars into a National Guard base in Kharma, a town on the outskirts of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, a U.S. military official s^id on condition of anonymity. The number of U.S. and Iraqi casualties was not immediately clear, but a statement from the U.S. Marines said there were no serious injuries among American troops at the base. The National Guard . is the centerpiece of U.S. plans to turn over security responsibilities after elections slated for January and guardsmen have been targeted repeatedly by insurgents who are trying to undermine Iraq’s interim government and drive out the U.S.-led coalition. But the threat may not only come from outside the force. Guard Brig. Gen. Talib al-Lahibi, who previously served as an infantry officer in Saddam Hussein’s army, was detained Thursday in the province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, a U.S. military statement announced. The statement provided no details, but said he was suspected of having links to militants who have been attacking cqalition and Iraqi forces for 17 months. Al-Lahibi was the acting head of the Iraqi National Guard for Diyala province, said Maj. Neal O’Brien, spokesman for the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division. Meanwhile, an Egyptian diplomat and two British Muslim leaders urged religious leaders here to help secure the release of hostages. Egyptian official Farouq Mabrouk sought help for six Egyptian telecommunications workers abducted with four Iraqis last week. Mabrouk refused to speak to reporters after his 30 minute meeting with Harith al-Dhari, who heads the Association of Muslim Scholars, a conservative organization that has helped win the release of other foreign captives. Gunmen abducted two of the Egyptians on Thursday in a raid on their firm’s Baghdad office _ the latest in a string of kidnappings targeting engineers working on rebuilding Iraq. Eight other employees, four Egyptians and four Iraqis, were seized outside of Baghdad on Wednesday. Two senior officials of the Muslim Council of Britain were in Baghdad seeking freedom for hostage Kenneth Bigley, a British civil engineer kidnapped Sept. 16 with two Americans who were later beheaded. After meeting with Muslim. and Christian leaders, Daud Abdullah and Musharraf Hussain told reporters, “We cannot hold a British citizen responsible for what (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair did.” A posting on an Islamic Internet site Saturday claimed followers of Jordanian terror mastermind Abu-Musab al Zarqawi had killed Bigley, but the British Foreign Office said the claim was not credible. More than 140 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, some by anti-U.S. insurgents and others by criminals seeking ransom. At least 26 have been killed, including the two American civil engineers, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley. Persistent violence, coupled with the coalition forces’ lack of control in key parts of the country, have raised questions about the feasibility of holding elections by the Jan. 31 deadline. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that the United States is committed to allowing all Iraqis the chance to vote, but the top U.S. military commander in the region cautioned against expecting that sort of achievement. / Both Powell and Gen. John Abizaid spoke of a major political and military effort before the scheduled elections to take back areas that insurgents now control. Powell said planning is under way for an Iraqi conference, possibly next month, that would include the leading industrialized nations and regional powers, including Iran and Syria. “This was a way to reach out to Iraq’s immediate neighbors and persuade them that this is the time to help Iraq, so that the region can become stable,” Powell said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” In other violence Sunday, U.S. troops and insurgents traded fire in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, resulting in at least three people being killed and four wounded, witnesses and hospital officials said. Insurgents fired mortar rounds and rockets at two U.S. positions west and east of the city, and U.S. forces responded with shelling, striking a house in Tamim neighborhood, witnesses said. A rocket slammed into a busy Baghdad neighborhood, killing at least one person and wounding eight, hospital officials and witnesses said. Hours after the attack, another loud blast shook the area near the Green Zone, site of the.U.S. Embassy and the interim Iraqi government. Smoke rose above the zone and alert sirens sounded. It was not clear if anything had been hit. SAURABH DAS/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS • U.S. soldiers inspect the site shortly after a rocket attack killed one person and injured eight in Karrada district of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday . The rocket also destroyed a car and shattered the windows of 10 shops. ■ JEANNE Continued from page 1 one season since Texas in 1886. And the hurricane season still has two months to go. Rain blew sideways in wind that reached 120 mph when Hurricane Jeanne’s eye hit land late Saturday night; by 8 p.m. EDT Sunday it had weakened to a tropical storm with sustained wind near 55 mph. At least a foot of water rushed through some streets in Vero Beach, where a mattress floated through one neighborhood. President Bush declared a major disaster area in Florida. The hurricanes have prompted the largest relief effort in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s history, eclipsing responses for the 1994 earthquake in Northridge, Calif., and the 2001 terrorist attacks, director Michael Brown said. “You’re going to have some areas that have been hit once, twice and sometimes maybe three times,” Brown said. “That’s very frustrating, I know, for those who live in those communities.” Frances was larger, while Charley and Ivan were more powerful. But Jeanne was bad enough, once again sending the Sunshine State into a state of emergency. Gov. Jeb Bush sought to reassure weary Floridians. “This will become a memory,” he said. “This does come to an end, and when it does we can probably use the term ‘normal’ again.” Seawater submerged the bottom floor of condominiums on Hutchinson Island, where Josh Lumberson rode out the storm. The parking lot was under 5 feet of sand and water, and sand rose to the kitchen cabinets inside first-floor condos. The ocean, once 75 yards away, lapped at the foundation. “It sounded like the whole building was coming down?” Lumberson said. “You could hear every metal screw coming out of the walls.” As the wind subsided, the clang of metal siding could still be heard on the barrier island. Jeanne made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane with winds of up to 120 mph just before midnight Saturday at Hutchinson Island, 35 miles north of West Palm Beach. Frances struck in almost the same spot. Once inland, Jeanne’s 400-mile diameter system trudged across the state, passing northeast of Tampa. It then headed toward the Panhandle, which was still recovering from Ivan. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, described the similar paths of Jeanne and Frances as perhaps unprecedented. The toll from the latest storm extended as far north as Daytona Beach, where the famous beach was ravaged by erosion, and south to Miami, where one person was electrocuted after touching a downed power line. , Two people died when the sport utility vehicle they were driving plunged into a lake beside the Sawgrass Expressway south of Boca Raton. In Clay County southwest of Jacksonville, a 15-year-old boy died after being pinned by a falling tree Sunday. In Brevard County, a man was found dead in a ditch in Palm Bay in what police called an apparent drowning. In nearby Micco, a 60 year-old man was found dead after a hurricane party at a home. He was found lying in water after the house had flooded; police said the death may be alcohol-related or the man may have drowned. Jeanne’s predecessors killed at least 70 people in Florida and caused billions of dollars in damage. In St. Lucie County north of West Palm Beach, police rescued five families when the hurricane’s eye passed over late Saturday, including a wheelchair-bound couple in their 90s whose mobile home collapsed around them, emergency operations spokeswoman Linette Trabulsy said. In Rockledge, the Indian River overflowed its banks, lifting docks off their moorings carrying them into roads and yards. Single-engine planes flipped over at Palm Beach International Airport. At Cape Canaveral, the third hurricane to hit NASA’s spaceport in just over a month blew out more panels and left more gaping holes in the massive shutde assembly building. More than 3,000 National Guard troops were deployed to aid relief efforts. But some residents acknowledged it could have been worse. Peirce Braun assessed the mess from the front yard of his bungalow. “It’s really not that bad,” he said. “The worst thing in Florida is to be without the AC.” Among the areas left without power were much of Palm Beach County, population 1.1 million, and, for the second time in three weeks _ all of Vero Beach. With Jeanne dumping heavy rain, there was fear of flooding in the days to come from swollen rivers in east and central Florida, already saturated by two previous hurricanes. In Sanford, a city near Orlando surrounded by lakes and rivers, a foot of water flowed down a scenic road that parallels Lake Monroe, and three-foot waves broke over the seawall that separates the lake from the historic downtown area. State officials said 59,000 people, many with homes already damaged by Frances, rode out Jeanne in shelters. By 8 p.m. EDT, Tropical Storm Jeanne was centered about 30 miles southwest of Gainesville, and was moving nortlvnorthwest near 13 mph. It was forecast to weaken into a tropical depression sornetime Monday. ^ i ELAINE THOMPSON/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Hundreds of tiny earthquakes have been reported at Mount St. Helens, but it is unlikely they pose any hazard to anyone outside of the volcano’s crater, state seismologists said Friday. ■ VOLCANO Continued from page 3 mud and rock debris. That portion of the mountain blew out during the 1980 eruption that left 57 people dead, devastating hundreds of square miles around the peak and spewing ash over much of the Northwest. The quakes have occurred at depths less than one mile below the lava dome within the mountain’s crater. Some of the earthquakes suggest the involvement of pressurized fluids, such as water or steam, and perhaps magma. The cause and outcome of the swarm were uncertain Sunday evening. A group of scientists planned to visit the mountain Monday to collect data. “There’s been no explosions, there’s no outward sign that anything is occurring. (The-notice) is all based on the pattern of earthquake activity that is occurring below the dome,” said Scott. Experts believe there is “an increased probability of explosions from the lava dome if the level of current unrest continues or escalates,” USGS ' and the University of Washington Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network in Seattle said in a joint statement. I 2910 Devine Street 254-7900 Solving Problems Including: DUI Criminal Defense Auto Accidents Cromer Law Offices A General Practice of Lew J.L. "Bubba" Cromer, Jr. Former SC. Stale Representative Need Help? | If work, family or other I challenges have stalled ~ your research, here's haw we can help: • Clarifying the method section * Assisting with survey design * Selecting appropriate statistics ♦ Entering and analyzing data • Creating APA ' tables and figures Jar (incense will be used) ? 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