Chlorine Gas Used In Anbar Attacks

(CBS/AP) Multiple suicide bombings struck the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, and about 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops were treated for exposure to chlorine gas, the military said Saturday. At least two policemen also were killed in the attacks. The violence started Friday afternoon when a driver detonated the explosives in a pickup truck northeast of Ramadi, wounding one U.S. service member and one Iraqi civilian, the military said in a statement. That was followed by a similar explosion involving a dump truck south of Fallujah in Amiriyah that killed six people including two policemen, and left as many as 100 residents showing signs of chlorine exposure, with symptoms ranging from minor skin and lung irritations to vomiting, the military said. Another suicide bomber detonated a dump truck containing a 200-gallon chlorine tank rigged with explosives Friday evening, also south of Fallujah in the Albu Issa tribal region, the military said. U.S. forces responded to the attack and found about 250 local civilians, including seven children, suffering from symptoms related to chlorine exposure, according to the statement. Suicide car bombers have used chlorine against Iraqis in Anbar a total of five times since Jan. 28, it said. The U.S. military also said last month that they found a car bomb factory near Fallujah with about 65 propane tanks and ordinary chemicals it believed the insurgents were going to try to mix with explosives. In Other Developments:
The U.S. Army said yesterday that a 21-year-old soldier from Athens, Ga., died in Iraq of wounds when he suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated on Wednesday. Army Corporal Brian L. Chevalier was assigned to the Fifth Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, Third Brigade, Second Infantry Division, based in Fort Lewis, Wash. One policeman was killed and two others wounded when an explosion struck their patrol in central Hillah, a predominantly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad, local authorities said. A roadside bomb also hit a patrol in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding another, according to police in the city. The Times of London has reported that the Iraqi judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death has applied for asylum in Britain. Raouf Abdel-Rahman, a Kurdish judge who took over the tribunal hearings of the deposed Iraqi dictator, is believed to have traveled to England with his family shortly before Hussein was executed, and is seeking to stay, fearing for his life should he return. Dashty Jamal, of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, told the Times: "The fleeing of Judge Rauf to the U.K. has proved that the Iraqi Government is unable to protect anyone in Iraq and is not representing the Iraqi people." Hundreds of anti-war protesters marched through Australia's major cities on Saturday calling for the immediate withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Organisers of the rally said it was part of an international day of protest to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led forces on March 19.