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3 boys killed in Iraq airstrike, companion says

BAGHDAD (CNN) — Three Iraq boys were killed in an airstrike in eastern Baghdad on Saturday as they were sifting through trash, looking for stuff to sell, said a 10-year-old boy wounded in the attack.

I was hit by an American helicopter, Ahmed Yahya said. I was with a group of about 10 children who were collecting empty soft drink cans in Jamila. We haven’t done anything.

U.S. military officials confirmed firing two Hellfire missiles at a rooftop in the vicinity about the same time that the boy said the attack took place. However, they say the only damage U.S. forces saw was to the rooftop.

Another boy said his brother died in the attack.

Dr. Jawad al-Mousawi, chief doctor at Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City, said the hospital received the bodies of three boys and a wounded boy about 2 p.m. He said the hospital saw three other fatalities and treated 23 wounded people from airstrikes and fighting across the city.

An ambulance driver at the hospital said it took three hours to transport the boys because of fighting in the area.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers killed five suspected militants and detained 24 others in fighting Friday and Saturday in the city’s southern Rashid district.

Earlier Saturday at least 28 people were wounded in a U.S. attack on a building near a hospital in Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City area, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

Employees of al-Sadr Hospital were among the wounded, and the facility’s property sustained damage, including to some ambulances, the official said.

In a statement, the U.S. military said the strike targeted known criminal elements.

We did hit the target, which was a criminal command and control center, which was near a hospital, the military said, adding that it was assessing damages. Watch scenes of damage near the hospital

The Interior Ministry official called the attack an airstrike, but the U.S. military said it was a guided multiple-launch rocket system strike. These guided rockets are launched from armored vehicles.

Al-Sadr Hospital is one of the two main medical facilities in the district, where Iraqi and U.S. troops have been battling Shiite militias loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The strike left a large hole in the ground near the hospital, video footage showed. Chunks of concrete and other rubble covered the ground, and car windows were shattered.

The southern portion of Sadr City has been walled off so that U.S. military and Iraqi security forces can control movements there.

Other developments

Four U.S. Marines were killed Saturday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Iraq’s al Anbar Province, the military said. Their names were withheld pending notification of their families.

Turkey’s military said Saturday that it had killed more than 150 Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq in an operation that ended early Friday, according to a statement on the military’s Web site. Turkey has been staging attacks against rebels with the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party, in the Qandil Mountain region in northern Iraq. A PKK official said Friday there were no party casualties.

A roadside bomb exploded Saturday at a traffic patrol in the western part of Baghdad, killing an Iraqi traffic police officer and wounding eight others, including six traffic police officers, a ministry official said.

Overnight, six people were killed and 25 were wounded in Sadr City, the Interior Ministry said. The U.S. military said it killed six criminals. On Friday, U.S. forces killed eight suspected militants during 10 hours of fighting in the Shiite neighborhood, a military statement said.

A U.S. soldier on combat patrol in eastern Baghdad was killed Friday when a roadside bomb struck the soldier’s vehicle, the military said. The number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war stands at 4,066, including eight Defense Department contractors.
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Zimbabwe opposition stands firm against runoff

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) — The vice president of Zimbabwe’s opposition party said top party officials on Saturday reaffirmed their decision not to participate in a runoff for president.

However, Movement for Democratic Change party members said that more meetings are planned this weekend, and that the decision isn’t final.

Should party leaders refuse to support a second round of voting, President Robert Mugabe will retain the office.

Opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai is consulting with political leaders in the region in hopes they can persuade Mugabe to step down, a Tsvangirai spokesman said. Find out details on the Zimbabwe election

Tsvangirai will make an announcement Sunday about his runoff plans, the spokesman said.

MDC Vice President Thokozani Khupe, who held a news conference Saturday, said pressure also was being placed on the ruling party, ZANU-PF.

Tsvangirai was traveling to Ghana to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Khupe said.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on Friday released official results from the March 29 election, showing that Tsvangirai won 47.9 percent of the vote, compared with 43.2 percent for Mugabe. Watch what’s next for the MDC

Under Zimbabwe law, a runoff is needed because neither candidate got a tally of 50 percent plus one vote.

However, the MDC contends Tsvangirai already won the office with 50.3 percent of the vote in a previous tally, and therefore another election is unnecessary. The opposition party also won a majority in parliament. That race also was held March 29.

We need to be convinced that there is need for a runoff. The verification process was not done properly, Khupe said, referring to the two-day process by the election panel that led to Friday’s official announcement of election results.

In other words, there is a deadlock resulting from the failure to execute its duties as required by the law.
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Philadelphia police: Robbery suspect kills officer

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) — A police officer who confronted at least two bank robbery suspects was shot and killed Saturday, leading to a manhunt during which an officer fatally shot one suspect, authorities said.

Investigators released few details about the shootings as police searched a wooded area for another suspect in the robbery of a bank in a grocery store.

Sgt. Steven Liczbinski, 40, a 12-year officer who had recently been promoted, was shot with an assault weapon not far from the bank.

It is my understanding that he was either in the car or had just gotten out of the car at the time he was struck, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said outside Temple University Hospital.

The suspects fled but were spotted by another officer, who shot and killed one, police said. Ramsey did not confirm how many people were involved in the robbery or how many were sought.

Police originally described a man and a woman in Muslim-type clothing and a man wearing a white hospital mask. The masked man had shoulder-length dreadlocks, but Officer Tanya Little said that could have been a wig.

Ramsey said that one of those suspects had been killed but that he did not know which one.

Liczbinski’s killing comes only a few days after Ramsey announced a major reorganization of the police department’s command structure and the addition of nearly 250 officers on street patrols as part of a strategy to reduce crime.

Liczbinski was married with two sons and a daughter.

This loss of life from a fine Philadelphia police officer is just one more example of the senseless violence that takes place here in our city, Mayor Michael Nutter said.
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Philadelphia police: Robbery suspect kills officer

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) — A police officer who confronted at least two bank robbery suspects was shot and killed Saturday, leading to a manhunt during which an officer fatally shot one suspect, authorities said.

Investigators released few details about the shootings as police searched a wooded area for another suspect in the robbery of a bank in a grocery store.

Sgt. Steven Liczbinski, 40, a 12-year officer who had recently been promoted, was shot with an assault weapon not far from the bank.

It is my understanding that he was either in the car or had just gotten out of the car at the time he was struck, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said outside Temple University Hospital.

The suspects fled but were spotted by another officer, who shot and killed one, police said. Ramsey did not confirm how many people were involved in the robbery or how many were sought.

Police originally described a man and a woman in Muslim-type clothing and a man wearing a white hospital mask. The masked man had shoulder-length dreadlocks, but Officer Tanya Little said that could have been a wig.

Ramsey said that one of those suspects had been killed but that he did not know which one.

Liczbinski’s killing comes only a few days after Ramsey announced a major reorganization of the police department’s command structure and the addition of nearly 250 officers on street patrols as part of a strategy to reduce crime.

Liczbinski was married with two sons and a daughter.

This loss of life from a fine Philadelphia police officer is just one more example of the senseless violence that takes place here in our city, Mayor Michael Nutter said.
found here.