Iraqi resistance shows no sign of lessening

BY ANTONIO CASTANEDA

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD -- Iraqis unleashed their fury at weeks of relentless bloodshed Thursday, throwing stones at police and U.S. forces they accused of failing to protect them at the scene of a car bomb that set buildings and vehicles ablaze in the middle of a jammed commercial district.

The unexpected protest by Baghdad residents followed a wave of attacks that have killed more than 420 people in the two weeks since Iraq's first democratically elected government was announced.

The attacks came as U.S. troops were in the midst of a major assault near the Syrian border. Fierce clashes were reported with resistance fighters on the outskirts of the town of Qaim, where angry residents lashed out at U.S. forces.

"They destroyed our city, killed our children, destroyed our houses. We have nothing left," one man in Qaim told Associated Press Television News.

Families were fleeing in trucks packed with luggage, and APTN footage showed plumes of smoke rising from the town. The United States has pounded the area with air strikes, artillery and gunfire in the first days of an offensive that the military says is aimed at capturing followers of anti-U.S. militia leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Five more U.S. troops died in Iraq, two during the offensive Wednesday and three others when their convoys hit roadside bombs Thursday in Baghdad and surrounding areas, the U.S. military announced. At least 1,613 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

More than 420 people have died in the two weeks since Iraq's first democratically elected government was announced.

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