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Four U.S. Soldiers Killed by Iraq Car Bomb

Posted on: Saturday, 30 April 2005, 09:00 CDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents launched fresh attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 10 Iraqis and wounding more than 30, officials said, in a second day of violence aimed at shaking the country's newly formed government.

At a meeting of Iraq's neighbors in Turkey, meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the violence was "not solely the concern of the Iraqis but ours as well."

Some of the worst attacks occurred in the capital, still reeling from Friday's onslaught in which at least 17 bombs exploded in Iraq, killing 50 people, including three U.S. soldiers.

A suicide car bomb exploded Saturday near the offices of the National Dialogue Council, a coalition of 10 Sunni Arab factions that had been negotiating for a stake in Iraq's new Shiite-dominated government. The blast killed two Iraqi civilians and wounded 18, police said.

Another suicide car bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol exploded Saturday near the Mohammad Rasoul Allah Mosque in eastern Baghdad, killing two Iraqi women and a girl, and seriously wounding four soldiers, police Lt. Col. Ahmed Abboud Effait said.

Two Iraqis - a policeman and a former official in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party - also died in shootings Saturday in Baghdad, police said.

U.S. officials had hoped Iraq's new government, which was approved Thursday and takes office on Tuesday, would help dent support for the militants within the Sunni Arab minority that dominated under Saddam and is believed to be driving the insurgency.

However, the lineup of Cabinet ministers named by Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari after months of political wrangling excluded Sunnis from meaningful positions and left the key defense and oil ministries in temporary hands.

Insurgents also launched three separate attacks Saturday in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, killing three Iraqis and wounding eight, police 1st Lt. Mahmoud Arif Yahya said.

A suicide car bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing a woman who was passing by and wounding four policemen, said Dr. Abdul Sattar Ramadhan al-Khalidi at Mosul's Jimhouri Hospital.

Elsewhere in the city, a roadside bomb missed its police patrol target, killing two Iraqi civilians and wounding two others and gunmen opened fire on a separate police patrol, wounding two officers, al-Khalidi said.

Two civilian bystanders were wounded when a roadside bomb aimed at a police patrol exploded south of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, army Brig. Hamid Al-Timimi said.

An audiotape released Friday by one of America's most-wanted insurgents, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, warned President Bush there was more bloodshed to come. In Washington, an intelligence official said the tape appeared to be genuine.

"You, Bush, we will not rest until we avenge our dignity," the speaker said on the audiotape that was posted on the Internet. "We will not rest while your army is here as long as there is a pulse in our veins."

In separate statements, posted on a Web site known for its militant content, al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group claimed responsibility for two of Friday's most deadly assaults - four suicide car bombings in one Baghdad neighborhood and four more bombings in Madain, south of the capital. The claims could not be verified.

Despite Friday's bloody toll, the U.S. military maintained that attacks are diminishing overall in Iraq.

Erdogan opened a meeting of foreign ministers from Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, expressing concern about Iraq's new government and fear that Iraq's violence could spread to the region.

"Iraq cannot be a place where one entity prevails over the others, nor can it be a place divided up as desired," Erdogan said in Istanbul. "Such attempts will meet the reaction of the countries of the region and the international community.

Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people. The Kurds make up 20 percent, and the Sunni Arabs, who largely stayed away from the elections either in boycott or for fear of attacks, are roughly 15 percent to 20 percent.

The U.S. military also said four U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded Thursday when a Task Force Freedom convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Tal Afar city, 90 miles east of the Syrian border, the military said in a brief statement. It did not explain why the casualties were not announced earlier.

Elsewhere, four U.S. soldiers in a convoy were wounded when their Humvee rolled into a ditch late Friday night near Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Saturday.

The names of the soldiers were being withheld pending notification of relatives. At least 1,579 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Separately, U.S. Marines operating near Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, found and destroyed two such caches, including blasting caps, mortars, an anti-aircraft rocket system and rocket-propelled grenades on Friday, the U.S. military said.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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