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String of Iraq Attacks Kill 54, Wound 120    [

    More US Troops Arrive in Iraq
    Reuters

    Tuesday 30 May 2006

    Baghdad - Some 1,500 more US troops have arrived in Iraq to help with the war against Sunni Arab rebels, including al Qaeda Islamist militants, in the western desert province of Anbar, the military said on Tuesday.

    "Two battalion task forces of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division have moved into Iraq to assist in re-establishing the conditions necessary to enable effective local and provincial governance and providing additional security for the people of Al Anbar province," it said in a statement.

    It said the 1,500 soldiers come from a "call-forward" reserve force based in Kuwait. A Pentagon spokesman said they would be based in Anbar province itself.

    US commanders, the White House and the Iraqi government have spoken of hopes for some American troops to go home this year but say that will only happen as Iraqi forces are ready.

    The Pentagon said the troops were on a "short-term deployment" and would take from 15 to 16 the number of US combat brigades in Iraq, but this did not raise the overall number of American troops, about 130,000, in the country.

    Anbar remains the area most vulnerable to insurgent forces.

    Residents of Anbar's provincial capital, Ramadi, say they have noticed increased US and Iraqi checkpoint and patrol activity in the city, 110 km (70 miles) west of Baghdad, and some families have quit the increasingly militarized city center in fear of a major US offensive against the insurgents there.

    "The situation in ... Anbar province is currently a challenge," spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing said in the statement. But she said it was not typical, pointing to the growing role of Iraqis in providing security elsewhere.

    Al Qaeda-allied militants, led among others by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as well as nationalists loyal to Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party have found refuge in the desert wastes of Anbar since the US invasion three years ago.

    US Marines have launched a series of offensives against rebel strongholds, notably in towns along the Euphrates River from the Syrian border to Falluja, where thousands of US troops crushed what had been an insurgent bastion 18 months ago.

    Violence

    US commanders' hopes were raised over the past year by signs of growing disillusionment among the local Sunni Arab population with the rebels, especially with Islamists who have bloodily imposed Taliban-style rule on some towns at times.

    Local people also voted in substantial numbers for the first time at December's parliamentary election and Sunni leaders are in the national unity government formed last week.

    But the insurgents remain strong in places, despite repeated raids by some 20,000 Marines stretched across the region.

    Many local people say they feel caught between the two and resent US tactics. They also accuse the US troops of killing civilians, as at Haditha in November where the military is investigating the deaths of 24 men, women and children.

    People in Ramadi said about 50 families - around 300 people - have already abandoned streets and alleys in the city center where Sunni Arab rebels open fire on US patrols.

    There have been no public suggestions from the US military that a large-scale offensive is expected.

    But Iraqis are not taking any chances. Clashes have prompted some residents to take refuge in schools on the outskirts.

    "We cannot stay any more. US forces have segmented the city and put snipers on high buildings," said one man, Abu Omar, 45, who has turned the Rumaila school on the outskirts of the city into a residence for his wife and five children.

 

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    String of Iraq Attacks Kill 54, Wound 120
    By Kim Gamel
    The Associated Press

    Tuesday 30 May 2006

    Baghdad - Car bombs targeting Shiite areas tear through a car dealership in southern Iraq and a bustling outdoor market north of Baghdad Tuesday as attacks nationwide killed 54 people and wounded 120 in the bloodiest day in recent weeks.

    Iraqi officials also said a key terror suspect who allegedly confessed to hundreds of beheadings was captured in a raid that also netted documents, cell phones and computers that contained information on other wanted terrorists and Islamic extremist groups.

    The worst bombing hit the market as Iraqis were doing their evening shopping in the Shiite area of Husseiniyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. At least 25 people were killed and 65 were wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Colonel Falah Al-Mohamedawi said.

    That attack came hours after a car packed with explosives blew up at a dealership in the largely Shiite city of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding 32, Capt. Muthana Khalid said.

    A bomb hidden in a plastic bag also detonated outside a bakery in Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring 10, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said.

    The explosion occurred at 9:15 p.m. in New Baghdad, a mixed neighborhood in the eastern part of the capital. Bakeries in this city of about 6 million open early and close as late as 10:30 p.m. so that people can buy warm bread for dinner.

    On Monday, 40 people were killed in various attacks, including a car bombing in Baghdad that killed two CBS crewmen and seriously wounded network correspondent Kimberly Dozier.

    Before Tuesday's violence, at least 4,066 Iraqis had been killed in war-related violence so far in 2006 and at least 4,469 wounded based on Associated Press reports, which may not be complete because the reporting process does not cover the entire country. During May, at least 871 Iraqis have been killed, surpassing the 801 killed in April. The deadliest month this year for Iraqis has been March, with 1,038 killed and 1,155 wounded.

    Amid the surge in violence, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki held another day of meetings aimed at getting Iraq's ethnic, sectarian and secular factions to agree on new defense and interior ministers, but the key security posts remained vacant 10 days after his national unity government took office.

    The Interior Ministry, which controls the police forces, has been promised to the Shiites. Sunni Arabs are to get the defense ministry, overseeing the army. It is hoped the balance will enable al-Maliki to move ahead with a plan for Iraqis to take over all security duties over the next 18 months.

    In the meantime, U.S. military commanders have moved about 1,500 combat troops from a reserve force in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar province in western Iraq to help local authorities establish order in the insurgent hotbed that stretches from west of Baghdad to the Syrian border.

    The military command in Iraq described the new deployment as short-term. The plan is to keep the latest troops -- two battalions of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division -- in Anbar no longer than four months, said one military official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details of the move.

    The military also said a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier Tuesday southeast of Baghdad and small arms fire killed a U.S. soldier Monday in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

    The bodies of two Marines missing after a helicopter crash in western Iraq over the weekend also were recovered.

    The AH-1 Cobra helicopter from 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing was on a maintenance test flight when it went down Saturday in the volatile Anbar region. The military said hostile fire was not suspected as the cause, but the crash was under investigation.

    The prime minister's office said terror suspect Ahmed Hussein Dabash Samir al-Batawi was captured Monday and he confessed to hundreds of beheadings in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. They also released a mugshot of al-Batawi wearing a white T-shirt with a nametag hanging around his neck.

    Although no breakdown exists, beheadings are not at all rare in Iraq and many such bodies are found in Baghdad and other cities. They are either the victims of sectarian death squads or Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq. That group alone has been responsible for beheading several foreign hostages, including American Nicholas Berg.

    Police also said three unidentified insurgents who were described as well-known aides of al-Zarqawi were killed last week during clashes in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

    Elsewhere in Baghdad, mortar rounds fired by remote control from a car hit the third floor of the heavily guarded Interior Ministry and a nearby park, killing two government employees and wounding three other people.

    A roadside bomb also killed one police officer and wounded four others in the capital, and police found nine bodies of people who had been shot in separate locations. A decapitated body was discovered floating in the river about 35 miles south of the capital.

    Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, meanwhile, said a pregnant woman and her cousin were killed in uncertain circumstances in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, as they were driving to a maternity hospital. When asked if they knew about the incident, the U.S. military had no immediate comment.

    It comes in the wake of an investigation into allegations that U.S. Marines killed unarmed civilians the western Iraqi city of Haditha.

    Separately, the U.S. military freed 204 male detainees from Abu Ghraib and other detention centers in Iraq after the Iraqi-led Combined Review and Release Board reviewed their files and recommended release.

    To date, the board has reviewed the cases of more than 39,000 detainees, recommending more than 19,600 individuals for release, the military said.

    In other violence, according to police and hospital officials:

• Three people were killed and 10 others were wounded in the volatile city of Ramadi, but the circumstances of their deaths remained unclear.
  
  
• A suicide car bomber tried to ram into an Iraqi army checkpoint in a village west of Mosul, but Iraqi soldiers opened fire, killing the driver.
  
  
• Masked gunmen killed a real estate broker, a baker and the owner of a convenience store in separate attacks in Baghdad.