Two killed in attack on Mosul's city hall
Iraqi police officer killed in his home

Saturday, March 27, 2004 Posted: 1:05 PM EST (1805 GMT)

This vehicle was damaged in a Saturday morning roadside bomb blast in Baghdad that injured five Iraqis.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Violence marked the start of the weekend in Iraq as two Iraqi civilians were killed in an attack on Mosul's city hall and five were wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said. Late Friday, an Iraqi police officer in Kirkuk was shot and killed in his home in front of his family, authorities said Saturday. Also, Kyodo news agency said an Iraqi transporting goods for Japanese troops was killed when his truck was attacked in southern Iraq.

In the northern city of Mosul, attackers fired guns, rifles and at least one rocket at city hall late Saturday morning, the U.S. military said, killing the two Iraqis and wounding five, the military said. In Friday night's incident in in Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, assailants entered Lt. Romeo Dawood Isha's home at about 10 p.m. (2 p.m. ET) and killed him, according to Gen. Turham Yosif, deputy commander of Kirkuk police. The attackers did not harm the man's family.

The five Iraqis who were attacked Saturday in Baghdad, in the Karrada district, were wounded by a roadside bomb. The bomb detonated as two sport-utility vehicles drove past. The injured were riding in the second SUV, said Lt. Col. Pete Jones of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division. The 7:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m. ET Friday) blast was powerful enough to shatter windows in a nearby apartment building. The military closed the area while an Iraqi explosives team checked the neighborhood, Jones said.

Friday, an influential Shiite cleric in Iraq called Israel's targeted killing of the spiritual leader of Hamas a "dirty crime against Islam" and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, "a miracle from God." Moqtada al-Sadr delivered a charged sermon Friday at a mosque near the holy city of Najaf, blasting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas. On Monday, Israeli helicopters fired rockets at Yassin as he left a mosque in Gaza City. Yassin and seven others were killed in the attack on the leader of what Israel, the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist group. Hamas' military wing has claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians as well as attacks against the Israeli military. But Friday, al-Sadr called Sharon the "biggest terrorist of all." "He has committed this dirty crime and killed one of the greatest of Islamic mujahedeen," al-Sadr told hundreds of worshippers at the Kufa mosque. "This was once again a dirty crime against Islam." Al-Sadr railed against the United States' occupation of Iraq. "I seek the spread of freedom and democracy in the way that satisfies God," he said. "They have planned and paved the ways for a long time, but it is God who is the real planner -- and the proof of this is the fall of the American twin towers." He then referred to the September 11 attacks as "a miracle from God."

Israel's targeted attack on Yassin provoked condemnation from many in the international community. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the killing violated international law. The United States criticized the attack but stopped short of condemning it. On Thursday, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned the assassination.