Car bomb in Iraqi town kills 13, hospital officials say

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A car bomb exploded Tuesday in a town northeast of Baghdad, killing 13 people who were attending a wake for the victims of a previous attack, hospital officials said.

The bombing in Khalis came two days after gunmen fired at a building belonging to a city council official, killing two people and wounding two. Tuesday's attack targeted the wake for those killed Sunday.

"So far, we've received five of the dead," said Dr. Nasser Jawad Kadhim, the head of the morgue at Baqouba General Hospital. "Thirty- five of the injured have been hospitalized." Other hospital sources said 13 were killed.

The nearby city of Baqouba was the scene of fierce fighting between American soldiers and insurgents who tried to seize government buildings and police stations only days before power was handed over by U.S. occupation authorities to the interim government June 28.

Guerrillas have been targeting officials who are seen as collaborating with coalition forces.

Also Tuesday, a group of armed, masked Iraqi men threatened to kill Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi if he did not immediately leave the country, accusing him of killing innocent Iraqis and defiling the Muslim religion.

The threats revealed the deep anger many Iraqis feel toward foreign fighters, whom many consider as illegitimate a presence here as the 160,000 troops of the U.S.-led coalition.

In a videotape sent to the al-Arabiya television station, a group calling itself the "Salvation Movement," questioned how al-Zarqawi could use Islam to justify the killing of innocents, the targeting of government officials and the kidnapping and beheading of foreigners.

"He must leave Iraq immediately, he and his followers and everyone who gives shelter to him and his criminal actions," said a man on the video.

The video marked the first time an Iraqi group made such a public threat against al-Zarqawi.

It was issued a day after U.S.-led coalition forces, who have been targeting al-Zarqawi, launched an airstrike in the restive city of Fallujah on a suspected safe house used by his followers. The attack killed 15 people, witnesses said.

In the video, three men, their faces covered with Arab headscarves, were flanked by rocket propelled grenades and an Iraqi flag. The man speaking had a clear Iraqi accent.

"We swear to Allah that we have started preparing ... to capture him and his allies or kill them and present them as gift to our people." the man said. "This is the last warning. If you don't stop, we will do to you what the coalition forces have failed to do."

Al-Zarqawi, said to be connected to al-Qaida, is believed to be behind a series of coordinated attacks on police and security forces that killed 100 people only days before U.S. forces handed over power to an Iraqi interim government.

His followers have also claimed responsibility for the beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il.

In Tripoli, Lebanon, the family of a Lebanese-born U.S. Marine held hostage in Iraq said it was confident that Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun had been freed and was well, although relatives have not heard directly from him.

"We have received reliable information the guy is free," his brother, Sami, told The Associated Press.

Although he had not spoken with his brother, who was serving as a translator with the U.S. Marines in Iraq when he disappeared June 20, Sami Hassoun said "we received a sign from my brother reassuring us."

He would not elaborate, but said the family received credible information from a person who came to their Tripoli home.

Lebanese Foreign Ministry officials said in Beirut that its embassy in Baghdad said Hassoun was still alive. They gave no further details.

Hassoun's alleged captors have claimed he was romantically involved with an Arab woman and was lured away from his Marine base and captured.

Hassoun's family in Tripoli and in Utah have had their hopes dashed and raised with conflicting information about the 24-year-old Marine's fate coming from his purported captors and Lebanese officials.

The insurgents' attacks in Iraq have led to fears that religious fanatics and Saddam loyalists may be joining forces to fight both the multinational force and the new Iraqi government, increasing violence that has wracked the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein 14 months ago.

The military said three U.S. Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in western Iraq. Two died in action Monday in Anbar province, while a third died of his wounds later in the day.

In the town of Latifiyah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, two police officers were seriously injured Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on their patrol car before fleeing, said police Lt. Hazim Abdul-Kadhim.

In Baghdad, the U.S. military said Tuesday that troops had fired on a car that failed to heed warnings to stop at a checkpoint, killing one child and wounding a second.

Explosions also rocked the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, when a roadside bomb targeting a British military convoy blew up, killing one civilian and injuring two, said Capt. Mushtak Taleb, an Iraqi police spokesman. No British forces were hurt.

NATO officials met Tuesday with Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan on a possible future role for the alliance in the country.

The interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has been trying to find a way to stem violence.

On Monday, U.S forces dropped two tons of bombs on a purported militant safe house in Fallujah, killing 15 members of one family, according to witnesses, and turning the building into a 30-foot-deep pit of sand and rubble.

The Fallujah attack was the fifth airstrike in two weeks in the area where the U.S. military says al-Zarqawi's network has safe houses.

Men gathered at the pit where the house had been and pulled out clothes, including a young child's shirt, from the rubble.

"Is this acceptable to the Iraqi government?" asked an angry man at the scene. "Where are human rights?"

Yasser Abed, 17, said 15 members of his family, including 12 children, were killed in the air strike. Abed, his father and a brother were out of the house at the time of the attack, he said. Hospital officials said at least 10 people were killed. Previous U.S. airstrikes in Fallujah have killed dozens.

Allawi issued an unprecedented statement saying his government provided intelligence for the location of the al-Zarqawi safe house so the strike could "terminate those terrorists, whose booby-trapped cars and explosive belts have harvested the souls of innocent Iraqis without discrimination, destroying Iraqi schools, hospitals and police stations."

Allawi appealed to Iraqis to report the activities of insurgents.

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