A car bomb exploded next to a US 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 US troops killed in three days to 14, part of a surge in attacks that have also killed more than 60 Iraqis.
In the northern city of Tal Afar, there were reports that militants were in control and that Shiites and Sunnis were fighting in the streets, a day after two car bombs killed at least 20 people. Police Captain Ahmed Hashem Taki said Tal Afar was experiencing "civil war." Journalists were blocked from entering the city of 200,000.
Yesterday, about 1,000 US Marines, sailors and soldiers encircled Haditha, 220km northwest of Baghdad in the troubled Anbar Province, launching the second major operation in this vast western region in less than a month. Marine Captain Christopher Toland said three insurgents were killed and two Marines were wounded in initial fighting.
Eighteen US 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 US 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, US 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 US 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.
During the same period, there have been at least 89 car bombs killing at least 355 people, according to the AP count. There were an additional five suicide bombings by individuals wearing explosives that killed at least 107 people.
The man blamed for instigating many of the attacks, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been wounded, according to a Web statement in the name of his group, al-Qaeda in Iraq.
But US officials cautioned they did not know if the posting was authentic, and privately said the information also may have been designed to purposely mislead.
The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi has denounced Iraqi Shiites as US collaborators and said killing them, including women and children, was justified.
Al-Zarqawi, who like his patron Osama bin Laden has a US$25 million bounty on his head, has claimed responsibility for a relentless wave bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. They include a Feb. 28 bomb attack that killed 125 people in Hillah, south of Baghdad, in the single deadliest terror attack since Saddam Hussein's fall.
Sunni and Shiite clerics and politicians have been intensifying efforts to find a way out of a sectarian crisis that threatens a civil war.
Senior officials representing Iraq's two leading Sunni Muslim organizations met on Tuesday with Interior Minister Bayan Jabr. The Sunni officials recently had deman-ded Jabr's resignation, holding his office responsible for the killings of Sunni clerics and others.
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a prominent Shiite politician, said there will be no civil war.
"The awareness of the Iraqi people and the links between them will prevent such a war, God willing," al-Hakim said in an interview.
Al-Hakim, who leads both the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the governing United Iraqi Alliance, said insurgents had been trying to start a civil war between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority since Saddam's ouster.
Sunnis opposed to the new government are thought to make up the insurgency's core, and some Sunni extremists have been attacking Shiites.
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