Iraq Attacks Claim 14 U.S. Troops

[David]

AP


A car bomb exploded next to a U.S. Army convoy in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing three soldiers, while another American died in a drive-by shooting a half-hour later. Their deaths pushed the number of U.S. troops killed in three days to 14, part of a surge in attacks that have also killed about 60 Iraqis.

The man blamed for instigating many of the attacks, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been injured, according to a Web statement in the name of his group, al Qaeda in Iraq.

Eighteen U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq during the past week, raising concerns that insurgents may again be focusing their sights on American forces in addition to Shiite Muslims.

The deaths come as American troops are trying to pave the way for a graceful exit from Iraq by giving more responsibility to the country's security forces. But with the Iraqis still relatively weak, U.S. troops remain in the firing line, targeted by insurgents that have shown increasing abilities to attack when and where they please.

More than 620 people, including 58 U.S. troops, have been killed since April 28, when insurgents launched a bloody campaign after Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new Shiite-dominated government. The Associated Press count is based on reports from police, hospital and military officials.

As of Tuesday, at least 1,643 U.S. military personnel have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In other developments:


Earlier, U.S. forces announced the capture of two leading militants with links to al-Zarqawi. Mohammed Daham Abd Hamadi, leader of the al-Noaman Brigades, was captured in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Monday. Hamadi's terror cell has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings of Chinese and Turkish citizens, who were later freed. The other capture announced Tuesday was of Mullah Kamel al-Aswadi, who American forces described as the "most wanted terrorist in North-Central Iraq."


Gunmen opened fire on a four-car convoy carrying conservative Shiite legislator Salamah al-Khafaji, one of the most prominent women in Iraq's new parliament. The lawmaker escaped unharmed, but four of her bodyguards were critically injured.


Militants also gunned down two people and seized control of Tal Afar, a town 50 miles west of the northern city of Mosul, police said on Tuesday, hours after two car bombs killed at least 20 people late Monday.


The U.S. military announced that a two-day operation involving more than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and police, their largest-ever joint campaign in the Baghdad area, had rounded up 428 suspected insurgents.


A Georgian serviceman suffered serious wounds to his legs and arms after the U.S. Army jeep he was traveling in north of Baghdad hit a land mine, Defense Ministry spokesman Nana Intskirveli. There are 850 Georgian troops serving in U.S-led coalition forces in Iraq. "It looks like he will have to have his arms and legs amputated," Intskirveli said, adding the soldier has been airlifted to Germany.

Insurgents continued to wreak havoc in the Iraqi capital despite the ongoing crackdown in the Abu Ghraib area, which has been targeting militants thought responsible for multiple attacks on the U.S.-detention facility there and the road linking downtown to the international airport.

Tuesday's blast occurred near eastern Baghdad's well-known Withaq Square, a Christian neighborhood, destroying at least three cars and damaging several buildings.

Residents called police about a suspicious-looking car parked opposite the Dijlah Junior High School for Girls in Alwiyah. As bomb disposal experts approached the vehicle, it exploded and killed six bystanders, said police Capt. Husham Ismael.

Three civilians and one policeman were also injured; none of the school's students were believed to be among the casualties.

"May God seek revenge for those who were killed or injured," an elderly woman screamed outside a hospital were casualties were being brought. "We hope that such killers be killed or perished as they kill our youth. Those killers are against homeland, against Islam."

At least 617 people, including 49 U.S. troops, have been killed since April 28, when Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new Shiite-dominated government. Washington hopes his government will eventually train police and an army capable of securing Iraq, allowing the withdrawal of coalition troops.

Iraq's National Assembly convened Tuesday, during which a conservative Shiite lawmaker said he was appointed to head a 55-member committee charged with drafting Iraq's new constitution, which must be drawn up by mid-August and put to a referendum by October.

Cleric Hummam Hammoudi, an aide to the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite Arab party, told The Associated Press that he was appointed head of the committee, while a Sunni Arab and a Kurd have been appointed his deputies.

At least 20 people were killed in Monday's deadliest attack when two car bombs exploded near the home of Hassan Baktash, a Shiite Muslim with close ties to the Kurdistan Democratic Party, in Tal Afar, a predominantly Turkmen town of 200,000 people, officials said.

On Tuesday, militants sprayed Baktash's house with machine-gun fire, killing two civilians and clashing with security forces, said Col. Saleh Jamil Sultan.

"Now terrorists have deployed throughout Tal Afar and I consider that Tal Afar is a city that is under the terrorist control," said Sultan.

A Turkmen lawmaker told Tuesday's parliament session that "street wars" were raging in Tal Afar but Iraqi and U.S. forces had not intervened.

"I demand the assembly's intervention to stop this evil and save the innocents in that city," said Sheik Mohammed Taqi al-Maollah.

Tal Afar was the scene of a nearly two-week siege late last year by U.S.-led forces targeting foreign fighters holed up in the city, which is astride a smuggling route to Syria.

At least 23 other people were killed and more than 120 injured in three separate suicide bombings in Baghdad; Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad; and Tuz Khormato, south of the northern city of Kirkuk.

Amid a wave of sectarian violence, there have been calls for greater Sunni participation in the political process. Just 17 Sunni Arabs are in the assembly, or parliament, following a decision by many Sunni members not to participate in Jan. 30 elections, either by choice or fear of insurgent reprisals.

Shiite lawmaker al-Khafaji was driving from Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of the capital, when the assassination attempt took place, her spokesman Bahaa Hassan Hamida said.

Al-Khafaji survived assassination attempts in January 2005 and May 2004, which killed her 17-year-old son. She was one of three women on the 25-member U.S.-appointed Governing Council until the transitional Iraqi government took over last June. She then had a seat on a national council that oversaw the work of government and was elected to the National Assembly in January's elections.

She was among several prominent Shiite politicians heading to Najaf to meet anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has sought to defuse tension between Sunnis and majority Shiites after a recent series of sectarian killings. Sunnis are believed to make up the bulk of Iraq's deadly insurgency.