113 Iraqis, US Soldier Killed on June 19, 2007, 44 More Iraqis Killed But Not Reported Yesterday

The Iraq News Agency (INA) reported that Iraqis and a US soldier were killed on June , 2007.

- A car bomb explosion in Al-Khullani Square killed at least 75 and injured 130 people.

- The Green Zone was attacked with ten mortars on Tuesday afternoon. Smoke has been seen from the area where US military headquarters and US Embassy are located.

- Diayala police chief, Sobhi Muhammedi, died today of wounds sustained in last week's assassination attempt on him, which also killed seven policemen and the suicide bomber.

- A US Hummer military vehicle was destroyed and its crew were killed or injured by a roadside bomb on the Haditha road.

- Clashes between Mahdi Army militiamen and the US-supported Iraqi police forces resulted in killing at least 40 people.

- More than 500 policemen in Ba'aj, province of Ninawa, resigned leaving their jobs, after receiving threats and seeing many of their colleagues killed.

- Six Kurdish Beshmerga fighters were killed and 16 were injured when their convoy was ambushed between Kirkuk and Baghdad, yesterday.

- Five policemen were killed and six were injured in a car suicide bomb attack on their headquarters in Samarra, yesterday.

- Thirty-three bodies killed by death squads were found in Baghdad yesterday.

Yesterday's reports had a death toll of 68 Iraqis. With these 44 not reported deaths of today, yesterday's toll should be at least 112 Iraqis.

The (US) Associated Press news agency (AP) reported that 113 Iraqis and a US soldier were killed on June 19, 2007. The AP reported the following news.

A truck bomb struck a Shi'i mosque Tuesday in central Baghdad, killing 78 people and wounding more than 200, even as about 10,000 U.S. soldiers northeast of the capital used heavily armored Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles to battle their way into an al-Qaida sanctuary.

The troops, under cover of attack helicopters, killed at least 22 Iraqi fighters in the offensive, the U.S. military said.

The thunderous explosion at the Khulani mosque in the capital's busy commercial area of Sinak sent smoke billowing over concrete buildings, nearly a week after a bombing brought down the twin minarets of a revered Shi'i shrine in the northern city of Samarra.

Gunfire erupted after the blast, which police said occurred in a parking lot near the mosque, causing the outer wall and a building just inside it to crumble.

Police and hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution, said at least 78 people were killed and 218 were wounded, adding that the toll could rise as bodies were pulled from the debris.

The raids, dubbed "Operation Arrowhead Ripper," took place in Ba'aqouba, the capital of Diyala province, and involved air assaults under the cover of darkness, the military said. The operation was still in its opening stages, it added.

A top U.S. military official said American forces were taking advantage of the arrival of the final brigade of 30,000 additional U.S. troops to open the concerted attacks.

The Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars denounced the joint operations in Diyala, calling them "barbaric acts" and promising they "will not stop the people from persisting in their efforts to gain their liberty, unity and independence."

Separately, the U.S. military announced the death of an American soldier in Baghdad. The soldier was killed by small arms fire during combat in an eastern section of the capital, a military statement said. No other soldiers were wounded in the attack, which took place Monday, it said.

The death brought to at least 3,528 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an AP count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,889 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

In southern Iraq, police and hospital officials said the death toll reached 30 in clashes that continued into a second day between Mahdi Army fighters and Iraqi security forces in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Some 150 people were wounded, authorities said. The officials, who declined to be identified because they feared retribution, said most of the casualties were police or militiamen. A delegation from Shi'i cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office arrived in the city to try to end the fighting, according to the city council.

In other violence reported by police, a roadside bomb killed the head of a Shi'i tribe and two people traveling with him near Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.

A roadside bomb missed a police patrol but hit two civilian cars in the Shi'i neighborhood of Zafaraniyah in southeastern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding five.

Associated Press writers Hamid Ahmed and Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

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