Insurgent Attacks Rise as Regime Touts Crackdown
More than 30 Iraqis are dead and an elite unit and
an embassy are hit. Officials say Operation Lightning is 'tightening the
noose' on rebels.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer
June 12, 2005
BAGHDAD — Insurgents lashed out with a wave of shootings and bombings,
including a blast aimed at the heart of Iraq's security apparatus, despite
a highly publicized crackdown by Iraqi forces seeking to halt violence here
in the capital and bring credibility to the new government.
More than 30 Iraqis were killed or discovered dead in the Baghdad area
Friday night and Saturday as insurgents set off three bombs in the capital
in less than 18 hours. The U.S. military also disclosed the deaths of two
Marines assigned to the 2nd Division who were killed Friday. They were killed
near the town of Saqlawiya, west of Fallouja, by a roadside bomb.
The violence underscores Iraq's continuing security woes as the recently
installed transitional government and U.S. forces attempt to bolster Iraq's
police and military and assure the public that the insurgency is losing ground.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomb went off in front of the Slovak Embassy,
injuring four people, as Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr was wrapping
up a news conference across town to tout the successes of the crackdown on
guerrillas, called Operation Lightning.
"Iraqis have noticed that the number of terrorist attacks has decreased,"
Jabr said as technicians flashed slick graphics with English titles on screens
above him. "The number of car bombs has decreased."
He added that security forces had rounded up more than 1,300 suspected
insurgents and criminals, seized more than $6 million and killed 36 suspected
militants during Operation Lightning, which began late last month. "We are
tightening the noose on the terrorists in Baghdad," he said.
In the boldest of Saturday's insurgent assaults, a bomber infiltrated the
Baghdad headquarters of an elite Iraqi commando unit called the Wolf Brigade,
blowing himself up along with three members of the unit during roll call.
Jabr told reporters the attacker was a uniformed former member of the counterinsurgency
brigade who had managed to get past layers of security. Jabr said the bomber
probably was trying to kill Brig. Gen. Mohammed Qureishi, the unit's commander.
Meanwhile Saturday, U.S. warplanes and helicopters carried out airstrikes
on the outskirts of Karabila near the Syrian border, killing about 40 insurgents
who were stopping and searching civilian cars, the military said.
Two Iraqi security contractors escorting a convoy of supplies to an American
military base near Fallouja were also killed Saturday, apparently by U.S.
soldiers who mistook them for insurgents, said an Interior Ministry official
and an executive at the victims' company, the Sandi Group. U.S. military spokesman
Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said he could not confirm the account.
"Obviously there was some kind of misunderstanding," said the representative
of the Sandi Group, which is under contract with security firm DynCorp of
Reston, Va.
The executive, fearing for his safety, agreed to speak on the condition
that his name not be published. "The Americans, whenever they see a car with
armed guys, they consider that a threat."
Thick sandstorms veiled much of central Iraq in a coat of fine dust Saturday,
adding to Baghdad's misery.
The rise in violence occurred after more than a week of relative calm.
It began when a car bomb exploded Friday night in front of a clinic in the
lower-middle-class Shuala neighborhood, killing 11 people, including a pregnant
woman. "What is the sin of the baby, who suddenly died inside its mother's
womb?" cried Umm Jumaa, the nickname of a local midwife who knew the deceased
woman.
The bullet-pocked bodies of slain Iraqis, many of them Shiite Muslims with
ties to the government, continued to show up throughout the country.
Police in the town of Latifiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, discovered
the corpses of 10 Iraqis shot to death and found three people clinging to
life. The provincial police commander, who asked to be identified by the
nickname Abu Harith, said most if not all of the victims were Shiite laborers
heading north for work in the capital when they were apparently attacked
by Sunni Arabs.
Gunmen killed three members of Iraq's special forces in the Washash district
of the capital before speeding away. In the Khadra district, the bodies of
an Oil Ministry official, his brother and their cousin were found with bound
hands and signs of torture, according to police, and the bodies of two Sudanese
immigrants were discovered in Shuala.
The Slovak Embassy suffered light damage in the car bomb blast. The Central
European nation has contributed about 100 troops to the U.S.-led war effort,
operating in the Najaf area under Polish command. At least three Slovak
soldiers have been killed since the conflict began.
In Najaf, a city considered holy by Shiites, a mortar shell apparently
left over from last year's fighting between U.S. forces and Shiite militiamen
exploded in the sacred Valley of Peace cemetery, killing two Iraqis who had
come to pay their respects to relatives.
*
Times staff writers Shamil Aziz and Suhail Ahmad and special
correspondents in Baghdad and Najaf contributed to this report.
