3 Iraqis killed in firefight
An official said Saddam admitted putting billions of dollars in foreign banks.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Rebels lobbed a grenade and fired on U.S. soldiers searching homes for insurgents in the northern city of Mosul, triggering a firefight that left three Iraqis dead and two U.S. soldiers wounded.
The Iraqis killed today were suspected of belonging to Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic militant group in northern Iraq believed to have ties to Al-Qaida, the military said.
The gunbattle came a day after roadside bombs killed two U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi children in central Iraq. Also Sunday, the death toll from a massive, coordinated insurgency attack on the southern city of Karbala rose to 19.
Strikes targeting the United States and its coalition partners underscore how the anti-occupation rebellion continues despite Saddam Hussein's capture Dec. 13.
Saddam's accounts
A member of the Iraqi Governing Council said Saddam had admitted to his interrogators that he had deposited billions of dollars in foreign bank accounts before he was ousted. Iyad Allawi told the London-based Arab newspapers Al-Hayat and Asharq al-Awsat that Saddam gave the names of people who know where the money is.
The U.S.-appointed council estimates that the Iraqi dictator seized $40 billion while in power and is now searching for that amount deposited in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and other countries, Allawi said.
In Baghdad, a large explosion was heard this afternoon, rattling windows. A coalition spokesman said that the cause of the blast was being investigated and that it took place outside the Green Zone, a barricaded area on the west bank that houses the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition governing Iraq.
The gunbattle in Mosul broke out when U.S. soldiers searching for rebels were attacked by small-arms fire and a hand grenade, said Sgt. Robert Woodward of the 101st Airborne Division, which is headquartered in the northern city. The soldiers fired back and broke into a house, killing the three suspected militants. The two Americans wounded were in stable condition.
Cash, weapons seized
In the house, soldiers seized $30,000 worth of Iraqi dinars and an arms cache: two grenade launchers, 11 rocket-propelled grenades, eight hand grenades, two assault rifles with 1,100 rounds, and a 9mm submachine gun, he said.
Six people in the house -- a man, two women and three children -- were turned over to Iraqi police.
Also today in Mosul, U.S. troops defused a roadside bomb at a major traffic intersection, and insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at a U.S. military convoy. There were no injuries or damage.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, police said they arrested four foreigners Sunday night who could be connected with attacks in that city. Police chief Saad al-Ubaidi said two Egyptians, an Afghan and an Iranian, all with fake passports, were handed over to U.S. troops.
He said they were "believed to have links to the bombings and ... the resistance" to the U.S.-led occupation.
The military has said some foreigners have infiltrated from neighboring countries, though most guerrillas in Iraq are believed to be Saddam loyalists or militant Muslims.
The Kirkuk police chief also reported that overnight a lone gunman attacked the office of an organization working with the U.S.-led administration, killing a police officer guarding the building.
Bulgarian deaths
In Karbala, Bulgaria's Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov arrived today to console survivors of attacks Saturday on Bulgarian military headquarters in Iraq and to escort home the bodies of five Bulgarians killed.
Officials said Sunday they arrested five Iraqi suspects in the Karbala attacks -- a blitz of four suicide car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars that blasted two coalition military bases and the Iraqi governor's office.
Four Bulgarian and two Thai soldiers, six Iraqi police officers and a civilian died Saturday. On Sunday, a Bulgarian lieutenant and five Iraqis wounded in the attacks died in the hospital, the Polish news agency PAP reported. More than 130 Iraqis and several dozen coalition soldiers were injured, officials said, including five Americans and 26 Bulgarians.
The attacks -- apparently designed to undermine the resolve of U.S. allies soldiering in Iraq -- were the worst suffered by the multinational force of 9,500 soldiers.
Still, Bulgaria reiterated its commitment to the mission in Iraq, and Thailand said today it will send an additional 30 troops to provide security for its other troops. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Thailand would fulfill its one-year commitment to the United States and would "not run away from a friend."
Japan, meanwhile, pledged to forgive "the vast majority" of Iraq's nearly $8 billion debt if others do the same, a critical boost to the U.S. campaign for debt relief.
Roadside bombs
On Sunday in central Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed two Iraqi children and an American soldier and wounded 14 people, said U.S. Army Sgt. Patrick Compton of the Army's 1st Armored Division. The wounded include five American soldiers, their Iraqi interpreter and eight members of the Iraqi civil defense corps.
Attackers detonated another bomb later Sunday as a U.S. convoy traveling on a road near Fallujah, west of Baghdad, killing another American soldier and wounding three, the U.S. military said. The latest deaths bring the number of American combat deaths since the invasion in March to 325.
Such bombs have been one of the insurgents' most effective tools striking against the coalition's overwhelming firepower.
Despite the attacks, U.S. military officials say the number of rebel assaults has dropped from about 50 a day in mid-September to an average of 14 or 15 a day.