Katyusha Rockets

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Suicide bombers, roadside explosions and mortar rounds killed at least 99 Iraqis and wounded 26 across the country yesterday. The U.S. military also announced that three American troops had been killed in Al Anbar province on Tuesday. In downtown Baghdad, Iraqi and U.S. soldiers continued to search out suspected rebels in the largely Sunni Arab Haifa Street neighborhood, making 15 arrests in the second day of an offensive against insurgents there, Iraqi officials said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas installed an emergency government yesterday and declared the parliament led by his Hamas rivals powerless, a move that paves the way for an end to a Western financial embargo. U.S. officials said they expected aid to flow quickly to the West Bank, but the fate of Gaza residents remained unclear after Hamas militants seized military control last week of the tiny coastal strip. American and Israeli officials said they would treat the territories as separate entities, supporting Fatah in the West Bank and squeezing Hamas in Gaza.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a Katyusha rocket 10 1/2 miles into Israel yesterday, their deepest artillery strike yet, provoking some of the heaviest Israeli assaults in months. Nine Palestinians were killed in the day's fighting. The rocket landed harmlessly north of the coastal city of Ashkelon. An Israeli tank and helicopter offensive that was already under way in Gaza quickly intensified, targeting suspected arms depots and the homes and hide-outs of militants, who fired back with grenade launchers and automatic rifles.

TYRE, Lebanon -- Another disturbing element in the story of the Qana massacre has fallen into place with the disclosure that the Israeli "patrol" which came under mortar fire from Hezbollah guerrillas on April 18 -- the incident that led to the massacre of more than 100 Lebanese refugees by Israeli shells in the United Nations camp at Qana the same day -- had been planting booby-trap bombs inside the U.N.'s area of operations.Two hours after the cease-fire which ended the 18-day Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, it now emerges, Israeli troops asked U.N. personnel to defuse a large and complex mine field that included plastic explosive charges and booby traps just outside the village of Henniyeh.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The crimson flag of Hezbollah wrapped the "martyr's" coffin yesterday, and the whole box was sheathed in plastic. Lowered into the ground amid chants of "God is Great," the coffin will be dug up and reburied -- without the plastic -- in southern Lebanon when the Israeli bombardment ends.The occupant of the coffin, a Hezbollah fighter named Ahmad Cherri killed by a rocket from an Israeli jet, was a "fair" fatality, according to convoluted rules of the conflict in south Lebanon.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At least 20 mortar rounds and Katyusha rockets struck the fortified Green Zone yesterday afternoon, killing an American service member and two other people in an attack on the heart of U.S. and Iraqi government facilities in the capital. An Iraqi and a third person of unknown nationality also were killed in the attack, according to a statement released by the U.S. Embassy. About 18 people were injured, including two U.S. military personnel and three American contract employees, the statement said.

Sneaking into Iraq a sign of weakness On Jan. 9, 1966, the United States mounted a huge infantry assault on North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam; 8,000 American infantry participated. Our putative ally, the South Vietnamese government, was not informed in advance of this major offensive on its soil, for fear that the plan would be leaked to the enemy. Flash forward 40 years, and we have the spectacle of President Bush sneaking into Baghdad without even informing the so-called prime minister of the "sovereign" state of Iraq in advance ("A surprise visit to Iraq," June 14)

MISGAV AM, Israel -- Thousands of Israeli troops backed by armor advanced deeper into Lebanon yesterday, crossing the Litani River in the south as a smaller force mounted an operation in the Bekaa Valley between Beirut and Syria. The ground offensive moved at least 12 miles across the border, by far the deepest such penetration in a campaign that began three weeks ago. The offensive was undertaken by the largest Israeli force assembled inside Lebanon since the outbreak of the fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas.

TYRE, Lebanon -- The big guns bark from hilltops, and the rattle of their echo shakes the empty towns and villages of southern Lebanon.From a lush banana grove, two Katyusha rockets reply in a voice not unlike their name -- ka-toosh. In minutes, the radio spills out a warning: Israeli artillery will blast the zone, explosive fists seeking to crush the rocketeers.The barrage of southern Lebanon continued into a sixth day today, a storm of iron raging above a land of stone. Those caught between were its victims.

JERUSALEM - A lightning nighttime raid by Israeli commandos against a cargo ship in the Red Sea has thwarted a Palestinian arms-smuggling operation linked to top Palestinian officials, the Israeli army said yesterday. At least 50 tons of weapons, including rockets that could easily reach Israeli cities when fired from Palestinian areas, were found Thursday hidden in 83 crates aboard the ship, which the army said was owned by the Palestinian Authority. Army officials said they arrested a Palestinian naval officer and several other Palestinian Authority security officers aboard the Karine A. The ship, flying the flag of the South Pacific nation of Tonga, was seized in international waters, about 310 miles south of the Israeli port city of Eilat.