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Mortar Fire At Ceremony In Tikrit

The excitement was supposed to be purely symbolic, but that's not how it turned out in Tikrit Tuesday, as rebels disrupted a ceremony in which U.S. forces handed over a former presidential palace to local Iraqi officials – after occupying it for over three years.

High-ranking U.S. and Iraqi officials were on hand for the ceremony, which was interrupted by mortar fire apparently from Iraqi rebels.

The mortar, which landed about 300 yards away, did not cause any injuries but did create quite a scare at the ceremony.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, briefly went inside the palace following the blast, but emerged a few minutes later to continue the ceremony.

Afterward, they took a tour through the building, which Saddam ordered built for his mother in 1991 and is considered the largest and most elaborate of the palaces built during his rule.

The palace is part of a complex on more than 1,000 acres overlooking the Tigris River. There are 136 buildings on the property, with a combined 1.5 million square feet of administrative and living space, including 18 palaces.

Col. Billy J. Buckner, spokesman for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, called the turnover of the palace to the Iraqi Ministry of Finance and the provincial government "a landmark event highlighting the increased capability of the Iraqi government to administer and govern itself."

Since being taken over by U.S. troops in 2003, the palace had served as a division headquarters for U.S. forces based in the region.

U.S. military officials, in a statement, noted that 28 other coalition operating bases were turned over to Iraqi control this year, but the Tikrit Palace complex is the "most significant transition of real estate thus far."

In other recent developments:

  • DNA tests are being done on eight rebel fighters who died last weekend in a raid in Mosul to determine if one of the men might be the leader of the terror group al Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq says he doubts the dead include Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the country's most feared terror leader. "Unfortunately," said Zalmay Khalilzad, "we did not get him in Mosul."
  • Gunmen killed a Sunni cleric, Khalil Ibrahim, outside his home Monday in the mostly Shiite city of Basra. The victim was a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of influential Sunni clerics that has been sharply critical of the Shiite-led government.
  • Four Iraqi policemen were killed and another wounded by gunmen in the town of Tarmiyah just north of Baghdad.
  • In Cairo, Egypt, leaders of Iraq's Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis wrapped up a three-day conference by condemning terrorism but saying their denunciation didn't include insurgent attacks launched against U.S. and foreign troops or the Iraqi armed forces terming those a legitimate right to resistance. The three groups agreed that there should be a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in the country - a key demand of Sunni Arabs, who are hoping to regain political power.

    Monday, U.S. soldiers fired on a civilian vehicle they feared might hold a suicide bomber, killing at least two adults and a child, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

    Dr. Ahmed Fouad of the city morgue and police officials gave a higher death toll, saying five people driving home from a relative's funeral had been killed, including three children.

    "It was one of these regrettable, tragic incidents and it wouldn't happen if Zarqawi (followers) weren't driving" car bombs, said Maj. Steven Warren, a U.S. spokesman, referring to Iraq's most wanted man. Warren said a soldier who thought the vehicle was moving erratically had fired warning shots beforehand.

    Iraqi officials have long complained about American troops firing at civilian vehicles that fail to approach checkpoints carefully or otherwise appear suspicious. U.S. officials point to the heavy toll of suicide car bombers who often strike U.S. and Iraqi checkpoints.

    The shooting near the U.S. base took place in a province that has experienced at least four major bombings in the last three weeks including a suicide car bomb Monday that missed U.S. vehicles but killed five civilians and wounded 12 others in the town of Kanan outside Baqouba.

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