Dec.14, 2004
MSNBC News
Photo: A woman wounded by a car bomb explosion is brought to Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital Monday.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber blew up his car early Tuesday at the same entrance to the Green Zone where a blast Monday killed 13 Iraqis. The latest blast killed 7 people and injured 13, according to a hospital official.
On Monday, an al-Qaida-linked suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near cars waiting to enter the Green Zone, home to the U.S. Embassy and Iraq’s interim government.
Also, the military reported two more U.S. Marines were killed in action in Iraq’s volatile western Anbar province, taking the number of Marines killed in the region in the past three days to 10.
Meantime, in the northern city of Mosul, U.S. troops discovered eight more bodies, bringing the number of bodies found in the volatile city since Nov. 10 to more than 150, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
Iraqi forces defended
As insurgents continued to step up attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces ahead of next month’s elections, the country’s interim president said Washington was wrong for dismantling Iraq’s security forces, including its 350,000-strong army, after last year’s invasion.
“Definitely dissolving the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior was a big mistake,” Ghazi al-Yawer told British Broadcasting Corp. radio, saying it would have been more effective to screen out former regime loyalists than to rebuild from scratch.
He added: “As soon as we have efficient security forces that we can depend on we can see the beginning of the withdrawal of forces from our friends and partners and I think it doesn’t take years, it will take months.”
U.S. military commanders, however, say American forces will be in Iraq for several years and that troop numbers will rise from 138,000 to 150,000 before the Jan. 30 national elections, which many Iraqis fear could be targeted by militants opposed to the occupation and bent on derailing the political process.
American and Iraqi leaders had hoped the ouster of Saddam — who was captured one year ago Monday on a farm near his hometown of Tikrit — and the detention or death of most of his top aides would deal the insurgency a knockout blow.
But the uprising has escalated and the number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces risen steadily. About 550 U.S. soldiers died in the first year after the invasion was launched; almost 750 troops have died in the nine months that followed.
Credit for blast
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq group claimed credit for Monday’s deadly attack in central Baghdad, where a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-packed car near a checkpoint leading into the heavily fortified Green Zone, killing 13 Iraqis and wounding 15. No U.S. troops were injured.
A U.S. soldier with the 1st Corps Support Command was killed and another wounded Monday in a vehicle accident near a military base in Balad, 50 miles north of the capital. It was unclear what caused the accident.
Two Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in action Monday “while conducting security and stabilization operations” in the vast Anbar province west of Baghdad, the military said in a statement.
Seven Marines died in action Sunday in Anbar, the deadliest day for the Marines since eight of their service members were killed by a car bomb Oct. 30 outside Fallujah. Another Marine was killed Saturday.
The deaths brought to nearly 1,300 the number of American troops killed in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003.
It was unclear where in Anbar the Marines were killed, but the province includes the turbulent cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.
Fallujah witnessed a bloody weeklong offensive last month to uproot extremist Islamic militants. Fifty-four Americans were among the hundreds who died in the battle, in which U.S. and Iraqi forces retook the city from insurgents and radical Islamic clerics who had ruled it since Marines lifted a three-week siege in April.
After last month’s campaign, U.S. commanders claimed they had broken the insurgency’s back in the mainly Sunni Muslim areas of western Iraq, and that they would start phasing in Iraqi security forces to take over. But fighting has persisted, and on Sunday, American jets dropped 10 precision-guided missiles on insurgent positions after insurgents fought running battles with coalition forces.
More bodies found in Mosul
Meanwhile, seven bodies with gunshot wounds were found in a western Mosul neighborhood on Sunday, and an eighth was found separately, Hastings said Tuesday. Their identities were not known, but the body found alone had a sign believed left by insurgents suggesting the man was from the Iraqi National Guard.
Separately, a police officer was wounded when gunmen shot at his car in western Mosul on Monday, police Capt. Ahmed Khalil said.
Initially peaceful after the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq, Mosul has become a worrisome trouble spot since the American and Iraqi militaries invaded Fallujah. Soon after, Mosul witnessed an uprising that saw militants overpowering police, looting or burning police stations.
Since then, police say insurgents have been targeting security forces and police there in a bid to strengthen their grip. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said the number of bodies found so far was more than 150, though it wasn’t known if all were affiliated with the police or Iraqi National Guard.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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