Bombers Kill 14 in Iraq; Missile Hits Civilian Plane:
"A missile hit a civilian airplane in Baghdad on Saturday, American military officials said, as suicide attackers exploded huge bombs at two police stations, one of them in this town north of Baghdad, killing at least 14 people, including two young girls, and wounding at least 50."

With the continuing chaos and violence in Iraq, which American soldiers have been unable to snuff out, a top Iraqi politician, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, was attacked by a mortar shell on Friday night at a mosque in Baghdad. But the shell failed to explode and Mr. Hakim, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and brother of the slain pro-American Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, was not hurt.

The airplane, operated by the courier company DHL, was hit by one or two surface-to-air missiles just after taking off from the main airport in Baghdad, the military said. The plane, an Airbus A300 jet, was apparently hit in a wing, an engine caught fire, and it was forced into an emergency landing at the heavily guarded airport that is a major base for United States soldiers in Iraq. None of the three crew members were hurt.

Military officials said there had been at least 12 other attempted attacks on the few civilian flights that operate in Iraq, and this first successful hit of a civilian aircraft might further delay opening the airport to civilian traffic and thus postpone one major marker for stability in Iraq.

Attackers have been increasingly successful in hitting aircraft in Iraq: 39 American soldiers have been killed in four helicopter crashes since Nov. 2, in which enemy fire either brought down the crafts or probably caused them to fall.

Forces hostile to the occupation here apparently intended to show their increasing sophistication and firepower by exploding two huge bombs — reportedly identical devices detonated almost simultaneously — at police stations about 20 miles apart north of Baghdad.

Six police officers and three civilians were killed in this small town about 20 miles north of Baghdad, and in Baquba, a restive city another 20 miles to the north, four policemen were killed along with a girl walking with her father. There were unconfirmed reports of several more dead.

The Iraqi police, trained and paid by the Americans, have been a frequent target, and on Saturday several policemen said they needed more support — in money and equipment — to prevent further attacks and take over, as the Bush administration is planning, more day-to-day security operations in Iraq.

"The American government and the Governing Council — how have they supported us to manage this enormous task of keeping stability?" said Maj. Raed Ali Ismael, head of intelligence for the police department in Baquba. "We don't have proper training. We don't have any support or modern equipment."

Another officer in Baquba, Maj. Hussein Israel Hamed, added, "Our enemy's technology is better than ours."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/international/middleeast/23IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=