IRAQ Fighting, blasts rock Fallujah

Attacks on security forces continued.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Explosions and gunfire rocked the turbulent city of Fallujah for a second day today, after coordinated attacks in other Iraqi cities killed about 100 people less than a week before Iraq's new government takes power.
U.S. tanks and armored vehicles maneuvered on the highway near the edges of Fallujah, firing in several directions, while armed men in an eastern suburb returned fire, witnesses said. Seven people have died in two days of exchanges there, hospital officials said.
Hours later, a roadside bomb exploded in a residential neighborhood in Baghdad, killing one Iraqi policeman and wounding another, police said.
The attacks on security forces fit a pattern of violence that targeted several cities Thursday, when insurgents set off car bombs and seized police stations in an offensive aimed at creating chaos just days before the handover of power to a new Iraqi government. U.S. and Iraqi forces regained control in heavy fighting, but the day's violence killed about 100 people, most of them Iraqi civilians.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network claimed responsibility for the attacks Thursday. A large number were killed in simultaneous car bombings in the northern city of Mosul, but some also died as U.S. troops battled the guerrillas.
Three U.S. soldiers were among the dead. At least 320 people were wounded, including 12 Americans. One of the U.S. soldiers was Army Sgt. Charles Kiser, 37. Kiser, who grew up in Amelia, Ohio, near Cincinnati, was with the 330th Military Police Division, a reserve unit based in Sheboygan, Wis., and had been in Iraq since January, his family said.
Martial law warning
As the situation worsened, Iraq's interim vice president warned that a drastic deterioration in the country's security could lead to emergency laws or martial law, however undesirable such measures may be in a democratic society.
"Announcing emergency laws or martial law depends on the nature of the situation. In normal situations, there is clearly no need for that [step]," Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite and member of the Islamic Dawa Party, told The Associated Press in an interview late Thursday.
Iraq's new leaders have recently begun to suggest the possibility of at least some form of martial law in some hotspots around the country as a way of stemming the tide of violence. It is unclear, however, whether U.S. officials would go along with the idea. A U.N. Security Council resolution approved this month gives the United States a primary security role in Iraq even after the transfer of sovereignty Wednesday.
Checkpoints
American forces set up checkpoints around Iraq on Thursday to intercept weapons, guerrillas and bombs. They fear that al-Zarqawi plans a string of car bombings in Baghdad, said Col. Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade.
"There is clearly a transnational threat, as represented by al-Zarqawi, and that threat appears -- based on what we've seen in Fallujah and Mosul today -- to want to bring the attack to Baghdad," Formica said Thursday.
A large number of the dead from Thursday's attacks were killed in simultaneous car bombings in the northern city of Mosul, but some also died as U.S. troops battled the guerrillas.
"We underestimated the nature of the insurgency that we might face during this period, and so the insurgency that we are looking at now ... has become a serious problem for us," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the British Broadcast Corp.
Assaults
The assaults were launched in the morning Thursday, when black-clad guerrillas attacked police stations and government complexes in Baghdad, Baqouba, Mosul, Ramadi and Mahaweel.
The heaviest fighting was in Baqouba, northeast of the capital, where guerrillas shot their way into a government office complex, seized two police stations and destroyed the home of the provincial police chief. The stations were recaptured Thursday afternoon, said Maj. Neal O'Brien of the 1st Infantry Division today.
Two American soldiers died in the Baqouba fighting, the 1st Infantry Division said.
Al-Zarqawi's followers claimed responsibility for Thursday's attacks in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site often used by his Tawhid and Jihad movement. The statement said the "occupation troops and apostates" -- meaning Iraqi police -- "were overwhelmed with shock and confusion."
Al-Zarqawi earlier claimed responsibility for the kidnappings and beheadings of American businessman Nicholas Berg and South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il, and an audiotape released Wednesday purporting to be by al-Zarqawi threatened to kill Iraq's prime minister.