Attacks Kill 5 Iraqis; Japan Hostage Dead

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Two suicide attackers detonated car bombs in northern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least five Iraqis, and a Japanese hostage abducted weeks ago was confirmed dead by his family and officials after abductors released a gruesome videotape purporting to show his body.

The seven people killed by the car bombs, including the two attackers, raised the death toll in violence on Friday and Saturday to at least 43.

A U.S. soldier also died from wounds sustained when a homemade bomb exploded near his vehicle earlier this week in western Iraq, the military said Saturday.

Three Iraqi soldiers also died and two were wounded on Friday when insurgents attacked an army patrol about 10 miles north of Hillah in an area controlled by the Polish-led multinational force, Maj. Wieslaw Adamski said Saturday.

Poland, a staunch U.S. ally, has about 1,700 soldiers in central Iraq, where it leads a multinational security and training force of about 4,600 troops. Poland plans to withdraw its main force at the end of the year when a United Nations mandate expires.

The dead hostage, Akihiko Saito, was among a group of five foreign workers – four of them earlier confirmed dead – that was ambushed May 8 in the vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.

More than 200 foreigners have been abducted, and at least 30 have been killed, in Iraq during the two-year insurgency, which U.S.-led forces and the new Shiite-led government have struggled to put down.

“The Iraqi minister of national security, Abdul Karim al-Inizi, condemned the assassination of the Japanese hostage by his abductors,” a statement said.

The Iraqi confirmation of his death followed Friday’s Internet release of a video in the name of the Ansar al-Sunnah Army terrorist group showing the bloodied body of an Asian man lying on his back with arms outstretched. A statement accompanying the video said the body was Saito’s and that he died after being seriously wounded during clashes that broke out after the ambush.

“I’ve looked at the images and confirmed that it is my elder brother,” Saito’s younger brother, Hironobu, said in a statement released through the municipal government office in Chiba city, east of Tokyo.

The 44-year-old security consultant was employed by Hart Security Ltd., a British firm based in Cyprus. He became the sixth Japanese national killed while working in Iraq.

Japan has dispatched more than 500 non-combat troops to help with postwar reconstruction in the southern city of Samawah, but there have been no military casualties. Many Japanese have criticized the mission, saying it unnecessarily endangers lives and violates the country’s pacifist constitution.

The U.S. soldier, assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, II Marine Expeditionary Force, died Friday after being wounded a day earlier during combat operations near Diyara, west of Baghdad, the military said. At least 1,655 U.S. military members have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The bodies of at least five Iraqis killed in the car bomb attacks at the entrance to an Iraqi military base in Sinjar, 75 miles northwest of Mosul, were brought to Sinjar Hospital, hospital official Ahmed Ali said, adding that 45 people had been wounded.

Three men also died as they apparently were trying to plant a roadside bomb that detonated in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

A roadside bomb blast targeting a U.S. convoy in Mosul killed three Iraqi civilians, including a 10-year-old boy, and injured nine, said Dr. Saad Khalid from al-Jumhouri hospital.

Ten Iraqis were killed and their bodies dumped Friday in the western border city of Qaim after returning from a pilgrimage to a holy site in neighboring Syria, police commander Brig. Abdul Wahab Al Adily said Saturday.

Al Adily said relatives of five victims told police the group visited the Sayda Zeinab Shiite Muslim shrine in Damascus and returned via the Waleed border crossing, about 140 miles southwest of Qaim.

Violence continued throughout cities south of Baghdad in a region dubbed the Triangle of Death, where scores of bodies have been found in an apparent wave of sectarian violence.

Two civilians were killed and three were wounded when clashes erupted late Friday between militants and Iraqi soldiers in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, said Dawood Al-Taie of Mahmoudiya hospital.

Gunmen killed another five people Friday during a car exhibition in the nearby city of Latifiyah, police Capt. Muthana Khalid Ali said Saturday.

Ali said police also found the bullet-riddled bodies of five Iraqis in a car on a road in Anbar province.

A suicide car bomb meant for a police patrol instead killed three civilians Friday in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, police Lt. Khudhair Ali said. Six policemen were among 24 people wounded.

Iraqi authorities are preparing to launch a massive security crackdown involving more than 40,000 soldiers and policemen in Baghdad to try to root out insurgents responsible for the wave of violence.

More than 660 people have been killed since the country’s new Shiite-led government was announced April 28, according to an Associated Press count.

Separately, Iraqi authorities released 304 foreign detainees and returned them to Iran on Saturday after they had been held in Kut, southeast of Baghdad, for up to seven months, police spokesman Othman al Duleimi said.

The detainees – including 249 Afghans, 45 Iranians, nine Nigerians and one Pakistani – had illegally entered Iraq from neighboring Iran to visit Shiite holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala, he said.

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Associated Press reporters Sameer N. Yacoub and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad contributed to this report.