World

2 GIs Killed In Iraq

February 17, 2004 / 7:50 AM EST / CBS/AP

Two American soldiers and at least one Iraqi child were killed Monday, the latest victims of a wave of violence in Iraq for which U.S. officials are unsure who to blame: homegrown insurgents, foreign fighters or both.

One soldier from Task Force Iron Horse died and four others were wounded when a bomb exploded at about 9:40 a.m. in the center of Baqouba, about 35 miles northeast of here, the 4th Infantry Division said.

Two Iraqis were arrested, including one who had a cell phone that may have been used to detonate the bomb, according to Master Sgt. Robert Cargie, a division spokesman in Tikrit.

The other fatal bombing occurred in the center of Baghdad about 9:20 a.m., killing one soldier from the 1st Armored Division and wounding another, the military said. The 1st Armored is due to leave Iraq in the coming weeks and be replaced by the 1st Cavalry Division.

The latest deaths bring to 540 the number of U.S. service members have died since the United States launched the Iraq war in March. Most have died since President Bush declared an end to active combat May 1.

A grenade exploded near an elementary school in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Baghdad, killing at least one child and wounding four others. The children apparently triggered the grenade while playing where it was hidden, Iraqi police Sgt. Maher Qassim.

In other developments:

Gunmen killed an American civilian and wounded three others in a weekend ambush south of the capital, the U.S. command said, when they opened fire on a taxi that was taking Americans from a religious group from the site of the ancient city of Babylon back to Baghdad.

A senior U.S. officer said Monday it appeared all the attackers wounded or killed in a weekend raid in Fallujah were Iraqis. Initial reports spoke of foreigners having taken part in the Saturday attack, in which 25 people were killed in simultaneous attacks on the police station and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps compound.

Amid a dispute over the planned handover of power from the U.S.-led occupation authority to Iraq, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, suggested that the Bush administration would be open to compromise. "The U.S. is here for a long commitment," he said on ABC.

Bremer said Monday that he would block any interim constitution that would make Islam the chief source of law, as some members of the Iraqi Governing Council have sought.

At a regional summit in Kuwait, Iraq and its neighbors said the U.S.-led occupation forces must withdraw as soon as possible, the BBC reports.

Kuwaiti lawmakers voted unanimously Monday to hold a parliamentary investigation into charges that a Kuwaiti supplier to a subsidiary of Halliburton overcharged for fuel deliveries to Iraq.

On Sunday, a special Iraqi police unit arrested of Mohammed Zimam Abdul Razaq, a senior Baath Party leader who was No. 41 on the U.S. military's most-wanted list.

Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim touted the arrest as evidence that the still-rebuilding Iraqi police force "can be depended upon in the fight against terrorism" — looking to give his troops a boost following the rout of security forces in Fallujah.

A spate of arrests have broken rebel command networks and forced fighters underground, a top U.S. military official told The Associated Press.

Yet attacks persist, crowned by the bold daylight assault this weekend on security compounds in Fallujah.

And the capture of dozens of guerrilla leaders has left the U.S. military with a murky picture of a shadowy resistance here, with American and Iraqi officials divided about whether Iraqis or foreign fighters are responsible for recent attacks.

U.S. officials here and in Washington have acknowledged a handful of Iraqi rebel groups remain active in Iraq.

They include: Muntada al-Wilaya, a Shiite group that has grown less troublesome since its leader's capture; The Return Party of former Saddam political allies that continues to mount attacks and distribute leaflets warning against cooperating with Americans; Muhammad's Army, an umbrella group of former Iraqi intelligence and security agents; and Ansar al-Sunna Army, which claimed responsibility for the Feb. 1 bombings in the northern city of Irbil that killed 109 people.

Despite U.S. gains, rebel attacks against U.S. troops in February have increased to between 20 and 24 a day, rising from 18 per day in January.

And guerrilla assaults have grown more spectacular — and devastating for the Iraqi police, whose death toll appears to have surpassed that of the far more numerous U.S. military forces. At least 538 U.S. troops have died since the U.S. invasion began nearly 11 months ago. But some 600 Iraqi police have been killed since May, said Iyad Allawi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council.

According to the Brookings Institution's count, Iraq has had 39 suicide bombings since May.

In the Saturday attack in Fallujah, gunmen launched a coordinated, two-pronged assault, pinning down civil defense forces while another group stormed the police station and freed the prisoners. Rebels launched the attack after sealing off the area with checkpoints and warning merchants not to open their shops.

Two days earlier, insurgents showered rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun fire on a convoy carrying two U.S. commanders including John Abizaid, the four-star Army general who runs the war.

That assault came a day after a suicide car bomber killed 47 Iraqis outside an army recruiting center in Baghdad. On Tuesday, a car blast killed 53 outside a police station in the Shiite-majority town of Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have begun focusing on foreign fighters, especially al Qaeda-linked operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian blamed for a series of devastating car bombs that U.S. officials say were aimed at fomenting civil war.

The emergence of al-Zarqawi has triggered a spate of competing statements by U.S. and Iraqi officials, with some blaming foreign terrorists for the car bombs and Saturday's guerrilla raid and others pointing to Saddam loyalists.