Mortars Rain On Baghdad

Insurgents hammered central Baghdad on Sunday with one of their most intense mortar and rocket barrages ever in the heart of the capital, heralding a day of violence that left at least 25 people dead in the city as security appeared to spiral out of control.

Insurgents appear to be closing in on Baghdad, said CBS News Correspondent Barry Petersen during an interview on Face The Nation.

Many of the dead were killed when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq's most-feared terror organization.

The dead from the helicopter strike included Arab television reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi — who screamed "I'm dying, I'm dying" as a cameraman recorded the chaotic scene. An Iraqi cameraman working for the Reuters news agency and an Iraqi freelance photographer for Getty Images were also wounded.

Maimed and lifeless bodies of young men and boys lay in the street as the stricken U.S. vehicle was engulfed in flames and thick black smoke. Across the city, at least 104 people were wounded in explosions and barrages, the Health Ministry said.

Strong detonations again shook the center of Baghdad after sunset Sunday. There were no reports of damage of casualties.

Tawhid and Jihad, a militant group linked to al Qaeda and led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said it carried out Sunday's coordinated campaign of violence in Baghdad.

In a Web statement, the group boasted that it holds the initiative in the Iraqi insurgency and possesses the "capability to surprise the enemy and hit its strategic installations at the right time and place."

The statement could not be verified, but clearly the scope and intensity of the attacks raised serious questions about the state of security, which has deteriorated since the transfer of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government June 28.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition faces a "difficult time" in Iraq but said the United States has a plan to quash the insurgency and bring those areas under control in time for national elections in January.

The insurgency "will be brought under control," Powell said in a broadcast interview. "It's not an impossible task."

Elsewhere, a suicide attacker detonated an explosives-packed pickup at the gates of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, killing himself but causing no other casualties, the U.S. military said.

American guards fired at the vehicle before the driver could reach the gate, the military said. The vehicle was one of seven car bombs reported Sunday in Iraq, two of which did not explode, U.S. sources said on condition of anonymity.

Near Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, an ambush killed three Polish soldiers — raising Poland's death toll in Iraq to 13 — and a bomb killed three Iraqi national guardsmen. A district police chief was killed in an attack in Baghdad's Yarmouk neighborhood.

Meanwhile, 10 people were killed and 40 were wounded in fighting in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, according to hospital director Abdel Munim Aftan.

Three American soldiers and two Iraqi civilians were injured Sunday when a suicide driver blew up his car next to a U.S. Army convoy on the road to Baghdad International Airport, the U.S. sources said.

Powell did not elaborate on the plan for addressing the insurgency, but senior U.S. officials in Iraq have spoken of a multi-pronged strategy involving overtures to tribal leaders, economic incentives and the use of force as the best way to prevail against an increasingly determined resistance.

Rockets and mortars began raining down before dawn on the Green Zone, headquarters of the Iraqi government and its U.S. allies, and other parts of central Baghdad. As the shelling continued after sunrise, U.S. troops backed by armored vehicles moved into the streets searching for the attackers.

A Bradley fighting vehicle rushing down Haifa Street, a major traffic artery near the Green Zone, to assist a U.S. patrol disabled by a car bomb about 6:50 a.m., the U.S. military said. Two Bradley crewmen were wounded in the attack and four more were injured by grenade and small arms fire as they fled the vehicle, the military said.

Jubilant fighters, curiosity seekers and young boys swarmed around the burning vehicle, dancing, cheering and hurling firebombs. Several young men placed a black and yellow banner of Tawhid and Jihad in the barrel of the Bradley's main gun.

Fearing the crowd would loot the vehicle of weapons and ammunition, the Americans called for air support, and as U.S. Army helicopters flew over the burning Bradley "they received small-arms fire from the insurgents in vicinity of the vehicle," a military statement said.

The helicopters "fired upon the anti-Iraqi forces and the Bradley preventing the loss of sensitive equipment and weapons," the military said in a statement. "An unknown number of insurgents and Iraq civilians were wounded or killed in the incident," which is under investigation.

Health Ministry official Saad al-Amili said 13 people were killed and 61 wounded on Haifa street, though it was not clear how many were killed in the helicopter strike. Scattered shoes, pools of fresh blood and debris littered the street.

"We were standing near the destroyed vehicle when the helicopter started firing, so we rushed to safety in a nearby building," Alaa Hassan, 24, said from his hospital bed. "I went back to the scene to help the wounded people when the helicopter fired again and I was hit in the chest."

Another 12 people died and 41 injured Sunday in other violence across the city, al-Amili said.

Elsewhere, gunmen attacked a group of policemen in the northern city of Mosul, killing one and wounding seven, police said.

Three security officers were wounded when attackers opened fire as they stood guard near the Dibis oilfields northeast of the city of Kirkuk. Two others were injured in a drive-by-shooting west of Kirkuk, said Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin of the Iraqi National Guard.

Security officers guarding the oil-rich Kirkuk area have repeatedly been targeted by militants who have blown up scores of pipelines in a bid to disrupt reconstruction efforts and undermine the U.S.-backed interim government.