No let-up in insurgent attacks

Fast restaurants were the target yesterday of a series of bombings in Baquba, 60km northeast of Baghdad, according to police sources.

Blasts four restaurants in the center of the city in early morning attacks. There were no reported casualties, but the blasts caused heavy damage to all the buildings.

Four were wounded in an earlier explosion on Tuesday night at another fast food outlet.

All of the blasts were caused by bombs planted nearby the restaurants.

Other yesterday saw a roadside bomb aimed at a US military convoy in Iraq's Triangle of Death hit a minibus instead, killing five Iraqis and wounding six, police said. The US command announced that it is stepping up counterinsurgency training for newly arrived officers to give them the latest tactics about protecting patrols from such attacks.

At least 93 American service members died during October, making it the fourth-deadliest month for the troops in the Iraq war. Many of the victims were killed by homemade bombs that the Pentagon has confirmed are becoming more powerful and technologically sophisticated.

The deaths raised to at least 2,026 the number of members of the US military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March two years ago.

At 7:30am yesterday, a roadside bomb targeting a US military patrol exploded on a two-lane highway in Jurf al Naddaf, a town just south of Baghdad, said police Lieutenant Colonel Sabah Hussein. The blast hit a private minibus that was traveling behind the convoy, killing five Iraqis and wounding six, Hussein said.

The bomb had been hidden beneath the surface of the highway, but there was little traffic, given the early hour. The blast occurred in a section of Iraq south of Baghdad known as the Triangle of Death because of its frequent attacks by Sunni-led insurgents.

Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, confirmed yesterday that the US command will soon step up its counterinsurgency training by opening the new school at Taji, an air base 20km north of Baghdad.

The New York Times reported that the school will be for newly arrived Army and Marine officers and allow field commanders to give them the latest tactics on issues such as finding and destroying roadside bombs and dealing with Iraq's many insurgent factions.

The Times said General George Casey Jr., the American commander in Iraq, had ordered the formation of the school because of increasingly flexible and deadly attacks by insurgents.

Soldiers marines already receive some counterinsurgency instruction back in the US before leaving for Iraq, but the Times said some senior US commanders have expressed concern that the instruction has been insufficient, uneven and lags behind the fast-changing tactics that insurgents use in Iraq. The academy will give intensive one-week courses, the report said.

In another development, the US military said yesterday that its forces raided the homes of two suspected al-Qaeda insurgents in southern Baghdad overnight and detained them. It said the men were carrying passports from Yemen, were on a reconnaissance mission in the capital and may have been involved in planning car bomb attacks.

The US command also said its soldiers detained 12 suspected insurgents after a roadside bomb and small-arms fire attack against coalition forces early on Tuesday in eastern Baghdad.