original story: G00436

IRAQ 2004

Iraq in January

The presence of US-led Coalition forces in Iraq continued to cause widespread resentment among many Iraqis. The country remained the scene of on-going armed conflict between the foreign troops and groups of armed militants in several key regions, including Baghdad and in the broad region north of the capital, known as the Sunni Triangle, where support for the former regime of Saddam Hussein had been strongest.

Militants carried out bomb, mortar or rocket attacks against Coalition troops or Iraqi civilians every few days in Baghdad. In response, US-led forces searched homes and communities in the city that were seen to offer the militants sympathy and support. In early January, Sunni Muslim demonstrators marched to protest against a raid by US soldiers and Iraqi troops from the newly formed Iraqi Civil Defence Force (ICDF) on the Ibn-Taymiyah mosque. Witnesses complained that the soldiers had handled them roughly and desecrated religious items. US commanders denied the accusations, but said they had seized explosives, guns and ammunition hidden at the mosque, and arrested 32 people believed to be non-Iraqi Arab militants.

APTN

Baghdad - 2 January 2004

Various interior shots of Ibn-Taymiyah mosque

Various shots of crowd protesting outside the Ibn-Taymiyah mosque

The British Prime Minister Tony Blair travelled to Iraq and met some of the 10-thousand British troops stationed in and around the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a relatively peaceful region 550 kilometres (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad. It was his second visit to Iraq since the invasion. Blair, the key ally of US President George W. Bush in the Coalition, spoke publicly during his visit about the threat of weapons of mass destruction, although none had yet been found in Iraq, and described the Iraq War as a test case in a war against global repression and terrorism. The United States and Britain had cited Saddam Hussein's alleged stocks of chemical, nuclear and biological weapons as a justification for the war, but have come under criticism because no evidence of such weapons has been found. Blair also visited a new Iraqi police academy, where British and European civilian and military police are training Iraqi recruits.

APTN

Basra - 4 January 2004

British Prime Minister Tony Blair shaking hands with soldiers

British police training Iraqi police recruits

Many United States citizens opposed their government's actions over Iraq and some went a long way to show their disapproval. A former US Marine and Gulf War veteran, Ken O'Keefe, travelled to Baghdad to burn his American passport in an act of defiance over the Iraq War. Standing in Firdous Square, where a bronze statue of Saddam Hussein was felled in April 2003 with the help of US Marines. O'Keefe said he had renounced his American citizenship, and called on American troops to put down their weapons and refuse service in Iraq. He argued that the US should pull out of Iraq without delay because no weapons of mass destruction had been found, and Saddam Hussein was no longer a threat.

APTN

Baghdad - 7 January 2004

Former US Marine and Gulf War veteran Ken O' Keefe in Firdous Square, showing his US passport

O' Keefe showing his hands

O' Keefe burning his passport

Tensions between Sunnis and Shiites worsened as the two communities competed for power following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, which for decades had subjugated the Shiite majority. Outbreaks of ethnic or religious violence caused confusion as well as harm. In Baqouba, a religiously mixed city in a region dominated by Sunni Muslims, an explosion ripped through a busy street as Shiite worshippers were leaving a mosque after Friday prayers, killing five people and wounding dozens. Some witnesses to the explosion had claimed that a rocket fired from a US warplane had caused the blast. But Iraqi police suspected a car bomb, and on the same day a car bomb was defused before it could explode outside another Shiite mosque. Three days later a car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi police station in the city, killing three Iraqi policemen and two passers-by, and wounding 30 people.

APTN

Baqouba - 9 January 2004

Tracking shot of burning car in front of mosque, people shouting and bodies on the ground

Man wailing beside body on ground

Wide shot of aftermath

APTN

Baqouba - 14 January 2004

Wrecked police car on street

Wall of station damaged by bomb

Building with wrecked doorway, pull out to wide shot

US troops continued to track down Iraq's former rulers. In January, US Paratroopers captured a Baath Party official and militia commander, Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, who was number 54 on the list of 55 most wanted figures from the Saddam regime. A US military spokesman said al-Muhammad had been arrested in the Ramadi area west of Baghdad.

APTN

Baghdad - 14 January 2004

SOUNDBITE (English) US Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, Coalition military spokesman

(overlaid with picture of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad picture):

"As a result of aggressive operations this week, the coalition announces the capture of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad."

The US-appointed civilian administration took steps to get rid of the remaining traces of Saddam's regime. Iraq's old bank notes bearing Saddam Hussein's portrait became obsolete after a three-month period to exchange them for a new currency. More than 10-thousand tons of old banknotes bearing the image of the ousted dictator were destroyed. Iraq's Central Bank announced that the value of the Iraqi dinar had risen by 25 percent since before the invasion, and that the new notes were harder to counterfeit.

APTN

Baghdad - 15 January 2004

Medium shot of armed security outside the Central Bank building

Close up of woman writing on dinar note

Women packing-up old money

Wide shot of money exchange

Medium shot of teller and customers changing money

Iraqi newspapers printed new photographs of Saddam Hussein being held prisoner. The US had announced his capture on December 14 (2003), and the photographs dated December 13 showed him in handcuffs and being escorted by US and Iraqi soldiers. The first of the photographs was published by the al-Mu'thamar newspaper, owned by Ahmad Chalabi, a prominent member of the Iraqi Governing Council, who has since been accused by the US of spying for Iran. Chalabi has denied the allegations. Several Iraqis spoken to by APTN in Baghdad said they welcomed Saddam's incarceration.

APTN

Baghdad - 15 January 2004

Men reading newspapers at news stand

Men reading newspaper with photograph of Saddam

Militant attacks on Coalition troops often took the form of roadside IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) -crude bombs triggered to explode when a convoy of vehicles passes by. The explosion of an IED in Baghdad was captured on camera after US soldiers spotted the device. A tactic of the militants was to place the devices where they could be easily seen, and then explode them when US troops tried to remove them. No US troops were hurt in the blast, but two Iraqi children were injured.

Two days later, a car bomb exploded outside the main gate to the Coalition "Green Zone" headquarters in Baghdad, killing 18 people. The blast, apparently triggered by the driver of the car, occurred at about 8 am near the "Assassin's Gate" of Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace complex, now used by the Coalition as its headquarters in Iraq. The gate is used by hundreds of Iraqis employed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the formal name of the US-led occupation authorities, as well as US military vehicles.

The Iraqi police force, seen by the Iraqi militants as allies of the Coalition forces, were frequently the target of attacks. In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb exploded outside a police station, killing nine people and injuring 45 others. It had been payday at the station, on the day before the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, and the two-story building had been crowded with staff. A huge crater was gouged out of the ground by the blast. Bodies lay in the roadside, and stunned survivors were seen stumbling down the street, their clothing soaked in blood.

APTN

Baghdad - 16 January 2004

US soldiers observing IED (Improvised Explosive Device)

US soldiers inspecting explosive device, which explodes, pull out to wide shot as soldiers walk off, pan of scene

APTN

Baghdad - 18 January 2004

Wide sot of bridge, tank in distance

Wide shot of destroyed vehicles, plumes of black smoke rising from burned cars

Mid shot of destroyed bus and car

Mid shot of US soldiers, burning cars on the background

APTN

Mosul - 31 January 2004

ALL LIVEWIRE VIDEO AS INCOMING

Various fires

Man with bloody head walking past camera

Wide of fires at blast scene, zoom in to people helping injured man

Iraq in February

Kurdish communities in the north of Iraq were also targets of attacks by militants. Kurdish Peshmurga militia fighters had been part of the Coalition that toppled Saddam, and Iraqi Kurds had suffered repression under the dictator's regime. In Irbil, 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, twin suicide bomb attacks during the Eid holiday celebrations killed 56 people and injured more than 235. Two men, dressed as Muslim clerics but with explosives concealed beneath their clothes, blew themselves up in the offices of the two main Kurdish political parties allied to the United States, the KDP and its rival the PUK. Among the dead were many of the leaders of the two parties, who had gathered to greet crowds of ordinary Kurds on the first day of the four-day Eid-al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday.

APTN

Irbil - 2 February 2004

Wide of damaged Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) headquarters

Inside views of damage including flags, firearms

In the south of the country, local people took up the grisly task of exposing the atrocities of the former regime. At least 50 bodies were found in a few days of digging at a mass grave discovered near Kifal, outside the southern Iraqi Shiite city of Najaf. Local people said the graves dated back to the 1991 Shiite uprising against Saddam after the Gulf War, which was brutally suppressed by Saddam's forces. Since the US-led invasion thousands of bodies have been found in mass graves in the mainly Shiite areas south of Baghdad.

APTN

Kifal, near Najaf - 8 February 2004

Workers exhuming remains of bodies from the mass grave

Row of bodies from grave

Various shots of skulls

The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, visited British troops in the southern city of Basra in early February. The prince flew in from Kuwait for a five-hour "morale-boosting" visit, during which he met members of the British Parachute Regiment at a tea party at one of Saddam's former palaces - now a British battalion headquarters. He also met the senior Coalition officials in Iraq, and Iraqi community leaders.

Pool

Basra - 8 February 2004

Soldier with flag in background

Prince Charles walking towards regiment

Prince Charles awarding sword to soldier

Militant suicide-bombers carried out attacks on Iraqis who were willing to work with the Coalition authorities, and the Coalition warned that such were likely to increase ahead of the handover to a new Iraqi government on 30 June. In the south of Baghdad, a truck packed with up to quarter of a tonne of explosives blew up at a police station where would-be recruits were lining up to apply for jobs. Hospital officials said at least 53 people had been killed and 50 injured. Iraqi police said the explosion was a suicide attack, carried out by a driver who detonated a bomb in a pickup truck as it passed by the station in a mainly Shiite neighbourhood. The explosion reduced parts of the station and nearby buildings to rubble. Hours after the attack, police fired guns in the air to disperse a crowd of local people angered by rumours that a US rocket had caused the blast.

The next day, in central Baghdad, a suicide-driver blew up a car rigged with almost a quarter of a tonne of explosives outside a recruiting centre, where up to 300 of Iraqis were lined up to volunteer for the new Iraqi military. Iraq's deputy interior minister, Ahmed Ibrahim, said 47 people were killed and 50 injured, but that the attack would not "deter the people's march toward freedom."

APTN

Baghdad - 10 February 2004

Crowds around and on top of the destroyed police station

Wide shot of crowds around demolished car

Interior shot of destroyed car, pan along it

APTN

Baghdad - 11 February 2004

Tracking shot of US soldiers walking on the road, wreckage of vehicles on the ground

Various shots of car wreckage, Iraqi police and US soldiers standing by

Tracking shot of US soldiers, wreckage of vehicle

Coalition officials in Baghdad disclosed the military had intercepted a letter purportedly written by a top al-Qaida agent in Iraq, which it described as a "blueprint for terror." The letter reportedly asked al-Qaida's leadership for help in launching attacks against Iraqi Shiites Muslims. According to the letter, the goal of the attacks would be to foment civil war between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in order to undermine the Coalition and provisional Iraqi leadership. The Coalition said it believed the author of the letter was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Palestinian-Jordanian suspected of links to al-Qaida and believed to be at large in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi had boasted of organizing 25 suicide previous attacks in Iraq. Following the release of the letter, the Coalition upped the reward for al-Zarqawi's capture to $10 million.

APTN

Baghdad - 11 February 2004

Various shots of pages of the intercepted letter

SOUNDBITE (English) Dan Senor, Coalition spokesman:

"This is a blueprint for terror in Iraq. It outlines very clearly that the blueprint calls for unleashing civil war,

APTN

Baghdad - 12 February 2004

New reward poster for ten million dollars

The city of Fallujah, 60 kilometres west of Baghdad in the Sunni Triangle, has been a centre of resistance by Iraqi militants against the Coalition forces and their allies. In mid-February, militant gunmen launched a daylight assault on a police station that killed 19 people, most of them police. Around 25 attackers stormed the building, throwing hand-grenades and freeing prisoners from the cells, survivors said. The attackers then fought a gun battle with Iraqi security forces in the street outside the station, before escaping after freeing 75 prisoners. Iraqi security officials said 17 police officers, two Iraqi civilians and four of the attackers were killed, and that two of the dead attackers carried Lebanese passports. Thirty-seven people were reported wounded.

One shop owner across the street from the compound said he and his neighbours had been warned not to open on Saturday morning because an attack was imminent. A week earlier, pamphlets signed by militant groups had been posted in Fallujah warning Iraqis not to cooperate with US forces and threatening "harsh consequences." Among the groups that signed the leaflets was Muhammad's Army, which US officials said appeared to be a group of former Saddam-era intelligence agents, army and security officials and Baath Party members.

APTN

Fallujah - 14 February 2004

White car being driven as gunfire is heard

street scenes, with gunfire heard

The Iraqi police in Baghdad arrested a former Baath Party chairman and one of 11 fugitives still at large from the US military's "most-wanted" list of 55 senior members of the Saddam regime. Mohammed Zimam Abdul Razaq was captured at one of his homes in western Baghdad and had not resisted arrest, officials said. Abdul-Razaq had been the Baath Party chairman in the northern provinces of Nineveh and Tamim, which include the city of Kirkuk. He was Number 41 on the US most-wanted list, and was pictured on the "Four of Spades" card in the playing-deck that the US military supplied to its soldiers to help them identify the regime's leadership. During a ceremony to present Abdul-Razaq to reporters, Iraq's deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim appealed for the most-sought after fugitive, Saddam's deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, to surrender. The most senior fugitive who remains at large, he is pictured on the "King of Clubs" card in the US military playing-deck.

APTN

Baghdad - 15 February 2004

Close-up Mohammad Zimam Abdul Razaq (centre, wearing head dress)

Still shot of Abdul Razaq on Four of Spades card

Militant also targeted Iraqi oil installations, to undermine Coalition efforts to fund the new Iraqi administration and reconstruction programmes with oil revenue. Saboteurs had attacked pipelines in the oil-rich of the country. But in late February they attacked an oil pipeline south of Baghdad for the first time, blowing up the strategic Kirkuk-Baghdad-Basra connection and cutting off the flow from the northern oilfields to the export seaport terminal in southern Iraq. The destroyed section of pipeline was still burning the next day at Razaza, near the town of Karbala, 100 kilometres southwest of Baghdad.

APTN

Near Karbala - 23 February 2004

Wide shot of smoke over desert landscape

Wide shot of smoky landscape, then pan over charred ground

original story: G00436

IRAQ 2004

Iraq in January

The presence of US-led Coalition forces in Iraq continued to cause widespread resentment among many Iraqis. The country remained the scene of on-going armed conflict between the foreign troops and groups of armed militants in several key regions, including Baghdad and in the broad region north of the capital, known as the Sunni Triangle, where support for the former regime of Saddam Hussein had been strongest.

Militants carried out bomb, mortar or rocket attacks against Coalition troops or Iraqi civilians every few days in Baghdad. In response, US-led forces searched homes and communities in the city that were seen to offer the militants sympathy and support. In early January, Sunni Muslim demonstrators marched to protest against a raid by US soldiers and Iraqi troops from the newly formed Iraqi Civil Defence Force (ICDF) on the Ibn-Taymiyah mosque. Witnesses complained that the soldiers had handled them roughly and desecrated religious items. US commanders denied the accusations, but said they had seized explosives, guns and ammunition hidden at the mosque, and arrested 32 people believed to be non-Iraqi Arab militants.

APTN

Baghdad - 2 January 2004

Various interior shots of Ibn-Taymiyah mosque

Various shots of crowd protesting outside the Ibn-Taymiyah mosque

The British Prime Minister Tony Blair travelled to Iraq and met some of the 10-thousand British troops stationed in and around the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a relatively peaceful region 550 kilometres (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad. It was his second visit to Iraq since the invasion. Blair, the key ally of US President George W. Bush in the Coalition, spoke publicly during his visit about the threat of weapons of mass destruction, although none had yet been found in Iraq, and described the Iraq War as a test case in a war against global repression and terrorism. The United States and Britain had cited Saddam Hussein's alleged stocks of chemical, nuclear and biological weapons as a justification for the war, but have come under criticism because no evidence of such weapons has been found. Blair also visited a new Iraqi police academy, where British and European civilian and military police are training Iraqi recruits.

APTN

Basra - 4 January 2004

British Prime Minister Tony Blair shaking hands with soldiers

British police training Iraqi police recruits

Many United States citizens opposed their government's actions over Iraq and some went a long way to show their disapproval. A former US Marine and Gulf War veteran, Ken O'Keefe, travelled to Baghdad to burn his American passport in an act of defiance over the Iraq War. Standing in Firdous Square, where a bronze statue of Saddam Hussein was felled in April 2003 with the help of US Marines. O'Keefe said he had renounced his American citizenship, and called on American troops to put down their weapons and refuse service in Iraq. He argued that the US should pull out of Iraq without delay because no weapons of mass destruction had been found, and Saddam Hussein was no longer a threat.

APTN

Baghdad - 7 January 2004

Former US Marine and Gulf War veteran Ken O' Keefe in Firdous Square, showing his US passport

O' Keefe showing his hands

O' Keefe burning his passport

Tensions between Sunnis and Shiites worsened as the two communities competed for power following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, which for decades had subjugated the Shiite majority. Outbreaks of ethnic or religious violence caused confusion as well as harm. In Baqouba, a religiously mixed city in a region dominated by Sunni Muslims, an explosion ripped through a busy street as Shiite worshippers were leaving a mosque after Friday prayers, killing five people and wounding dozens. Some witnesses to the explosion had claimed that a rocket fired from a US warplane had caused the blast. But Iraqi police suspected a car bomb, and on the same day a car bomb was defused before it could explode outside another Shiite mosque. Three days later a car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi police station in the city, killing three Iraqi policemen and two passers-by, and wounding 30 people.

APTN

Baqouba - 9 January 2004

Tracking shot of burning car in front of mosque, people shouting and bodies on the ground

Man wailing beside body on ground

Wide shot of aftermath

APTN

Baqouba - 14 January 2004

Wrecked police car on street

Wall of station damaged by bomb

Building with wrecked doorway, pull out to wide shot

US troops continued to track down Iraq's former rulers. In January, US Paratroopers captured a Baath Party official and militia commander, Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, who was number 54 on the list of 55 most wanted figures from the Saddam regime. A US military spokesman said al-Muhammad had been arrested in the Ramadi area west of Baghdad.

APTN

Baghdad - 14 January 2004

SOUNDBITE (English) US Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, Coalition military spokesman

(overlaid with picture of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad picture):

"As a result of aggressive operations this week, the coalition announces the capture of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad."

The US-appointed civilian administration took steps to get rid of the remaining traces of Saddam's regime. Iraq's old bank notes bearing Saddam Hussein's portrait became obsolete after a three-month period to exchange them for a new currency. More than 10-thousand tons of old banknotes bearing the image of the ousted dictator were destroyed. Iraq's Central Bank announced that the value of the Iraqi dinar had risen by 25 percent since before the invasion, and that the new notes were harder to counterfeit.

APTN

Baghdad - 15 January 2004

Medium shot of armed security outside the Central Bank building

Close up of woman writing on dinar note

Women packing-up old money

Wide shot of money exchange

Medium shot of teller and customers changing money

Iraqi newspapers printed new photographs of Saddam Hussein being held prisoner. The US had announced his capture on December 14 (2003), and the photographs dated December 13 showed him in handcuffs and being escorted by US and Iraqi soldiers. The first of the photographs was published by the al-Mu'thamar newspaper, owned by Ahmad Chalabi, a prominent member of the Iraqi Governing Council, who has since been accused by the US of spying for Iran. Chalabi has denied the allegations. Several Iraqis spoken to by APTN in Baghdad said they welcomed Saddam's incarceration.

APTN

Baghdad - 15 January 2004

Men reading newspapers at news stand

Men reading newspaper with photograph of Saddam

Militant attacks on Coalition troops often took the form of roadside IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) -crude bombs triggered to explode when a convoy of vehicles passes by. The explosion of an IED in Baghdad was captured on camera after US soldiers spotted the device. A tactic of the militants was to place the devices where they could be easily seen, and then explode them when US troops tried to remove them. No US troops were hurt in the blast, but two Iraqi children were injured.

Two days later, a car bomb exploded outside the main gate to the Coalition "Green Zone" headquarters in Baghdad, killing 18 people. The blast, apparently triggered by the driver of the car, occurred at about 8 am near the "Assassin's Gate" of Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace complex, now used by the Coalition as its headquarters in Iraq. The gate is used by hundreds of Iraqis employed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the formal name of the US-led occupation authorities, as well as US military vehicles.

The Iraqi police force, seen by the Iraqi militants as allies of the Coalition forces, were frequently the target of attacks. In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb exploded outside a police station, killing nine people and injuring 45 others. It had been payday at the station, on the day before the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, and the two-story building had been crowded with staff. A huge crater was gouged out of the ground by the blast. Bodies lay in the roadside, and stunned survivors were seen stumbling down the street, their clothing soaked in blood.

APTN

Baghdad - 16 January 2004

US soldiers observing IED (Improvised Explosive Device)

US soldiers inspecting explosive device, which explodes, pull out to wide shot as soldiers walk off, pan of scene

APTN

Baghdad - 18 January 2004

Wide sot of bridge, tank in distance

Wide shot of destroyed vehicles, plumes of black smoke rising from burned cars

Mid shot of destroyed bus and car

Mid shot of US soldiers, burning cars on the background

APTN

Mosul - 31 January 2004

ALL LIVEWIRE VIDEO AS INCOMING

Various fires

Man with bloody head walking past camera

Wide of fires at blast scene, zoom in to people helping injured man

Iraq in February

Kurdish communities in the north of Iraq were also targets of attacks by militants. Kurdish Peshmurga militia fighters had been part of the Coalition that toppled Saddam, and Iraqi Kurds had suffered repression under the dictator's regime. In Irbil, 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, twin suicide bomb attacks during the Eid holiday celebrations killed 56 people and injured more than 235. Two men, dressed as Muslim clerics but with explosives concealed beneath their clothes, blew themselves up in the offices of the two main Kurdish political parties allied to the United States, the KDP and its rival the PUK. Among the dead were many of the leaders of the two parties, who had gathered to greet crowds of ordinary Kurds on the first day of the four-day Eid-al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday.

APTN

Irbil - 2 February 2004

Wide of damaged Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) headquarters

Inside views of damage including flags, firearms

In the south of the country, local people took up the grisly task of exposing the atrocities of the former regime. At least 50 bodies were found in a few days of digging at a mass grave discovered near Kifal, outside the southern Iraqi Shiite city of Najaf. Local people said the graves dated back to the 1991 Shiite uprising against Saddam after the Gulf War, which was brutally suppressed by Saddam's forces. Since the US-led invasion thousands of bodies have been found in mass graves in the mainly Shiite areas south of Baghdad.

APTN

Kifal, near Najaf - 8 February 2004

Workers exhuming remains of bodies from the mass grave

Row of bodies from grave

Various shots of skulls

The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, visited British troops in the southern city of Basra in early February. The prince flew in from Kuwait for a five-hour "morale-boosting" visit, during which he met members of the British Parachute Regiment at a tea party at one of Saddam's former palaces - now a British battalion headquarters. He also met the senior Coalition officials in Iraq, and Iraqi community leaders.

Pool

Basra - 8 February 2004

Soldier with flag in background

Prince Charles walking towards regiment

Prince Charles awarding sword to soldier

Militant suicide-bombers carried out attacks on Iraqis who were willing to work with the Coalition authorities, and the Coalition warned that such were likely to increase ahead of the handover to a new Iraqi government on 30 June. In the south of Baghdad, a truck packed with up to quarter of a tonne of explosives blew up at a police station where would-be recruits were lining up to apply for jobs. Hospital officials said at least 53 people had been killed and 50 injured. Iraqi police said the explosion was a suicide attack, carried out by a driver who detonated a bomb in a pickup truck as it passed by the station in a mainly Shiite neighbourhood. The explosion reduced parts of the station and nearby buildings to rubble. Hours after the attack, police fired guns in the air to disperse a crowd of local people angered by rumours that a US rocket had caused the blast.

The next day, in central Baghdad, a suicide-driver blew up a car rigged with almost a quarter of a tonne of explosives outside a recruiting centre, where up to 300 of Iraqis were lined up to volunteer for the new Iraqi military. Iraq's deputy interior minister, Ahmed Ibrahim, said 47 people were killed and 50 injured, but that the attack would not "deter the people's march toward freedom."

APTN

Baghdad - 10 February 2004

Crowds around and on top of the destroyed police station

Wide shot of crowds around demolished car

Interior shot of destroyed car, pan along it

APTN

Baghdad - 11 February 2004

Tracking shot of US soldiers walking on the road, wreckage of vehicles on the ground

Various shots of car wreckage, Iraqi police and US soldiers standing by

Tracking shot of US soldiers, wreckage of vehicle

Coalition officials in Baghdad disclosed the military had intercepted a letter purportedly written by a top al-Qaida agent in Iraq, which it described as a "blueprint for terror." The letter reportedly asked al-Qaida's leadership for help in launching attacks against Iraqi Shiites Muslims. According to the letter, the goal of the attacks would be to foment civil war between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in order to undermine the Coalition and provisional Iraqi leadership. The Coalition said it believed the author of the letter was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Palestinian-Jordanian suspected of links to al-Qaida and believed to be at large in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi had boasted of organizing 25 suicide previous attacks in Iraq. Following the release of the letter, the Coalition upped the reward for al-Zarqawi's capture to $10 million.

APTN

Baghdad - 11 February 2004

Various shots of pages of the intercepted letter

SOUNDBITE (English) Dan Senor, Coalition spokesman:

"This is a blueprint for terror in Iraq. It outlines very clearly that the blueprint calls for unleashing civil war,

APTN

Baghdad - 12 February 2004

New reward poster for ten million dollars

The city of Fallujah, 60 kilometres west of Baghdad in the Sunni Triangle, has been a centre of resistance by Iraqi militants against the Coalition forces and their allies. In mid-February, militant gunmen launched a daylight assault on a police station that killed 19 people, most of them police. Around 25 attackers stormed the building, throwing hand-grenades and freeing prisoners from the cells, survivors said. The attackers then fought a gun battle with Iraqi security forces in the street outside the station, before escaping after freeing 75 prisoners. Iraqi security officials said 17 police officers, two Iraqi civilians and four of the attackers were killed, and that two of the dead attackers carried Lebanese passports. Thirty-seven people were reported wounded.

One shop owner across the street from the compound said he and his neighbours had been warned not to open on Saturday morning because an attack was imminent. A week earlier, pamphlets signed by militant groups had been posted in Fallujah warning Iraqis not to cooperate with US forces and threatening "harsh consequences." Among the groups that signed the leaflets was Muhammad's Army, which US officials said appeared to be a group of former Saddam-era intelligence agents, army and security officials and Baath Party members.

APTN

Fallujah - 14 February 2004

White car being driven as gunfire is heard

street scenes, with gunfire heard

The Iraqi police in Baghdad arrested a former Baath Party chairman and one of 11 fugitives still at large from the US military's "most-wanted" list of 55 senior members of the Saddam regime. Mohammed Zimam Abdul Razaq was captured at one of his homes in western Baghdad and had not resisted arrest, officials said. Abdul-Razaq had been the Baath Party chairman in the northern provinces of Nineveh and Tamim, which include the city of Kirkuk. He was Number 41 on the US most-wanted list, and was pictured on the "Four of Spades" card in the playing-deck that the US military supplied to its soldiers to help them identify the regime's leadership. During a ceremony to present Abdul-Razaq to reporters, Iraq's deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim appealed for the most-sought after fugitive, Saddam's deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, to surrender. The most senior fugitive who remains at large, he is pictured on the "King of Clubs" card in the US military playing-deck.

APTN

Baghdad - 15 February 2004

Close-up Mohammad Zimam Abdul Razaq (centre, wearing head dress)

Still shot of Abdul Razaq on Four of Spades card

Militant also targeted Iraqi oil installations, to undermine Coalition efforts to fund the new Iraqi administration and reconstruction programmes with oil revenue. Saboteurs had attacked pipelines in the oil-rich of the country. But in late February they attacked an oil pipeline south of Baghdad for the first time, blowing up the strategic Kirkuk-Baghdad-Basra connection and cutting off the flow from the northern oilfields to the export seaport terminal in southern Iraq. The destroyed section of pipeline was still burning the next day at Razaza, near the town of Karbala, 100 kilometres southwest of Baghdad.

APTN

Near Karbala - 23 February 2004

Wide shot of smoke over desert landscape

Wide shot of smoky landscape, then pan over charred ground