3 U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq

Three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi translators were killed in two attacks south of Baghdad, the military said on Friday. Eight soldiers were wounded.

In the worst of the two attacks, which took place Thursday, two soldiers were killed and seven wounded in an attack on their base south of the capital. The two Iraqi interpreters died in that attack.

The military statement said U.S. forces dispatched a quick reaction force and attack helicopters to relieve the unit.

In a second attack Friday, the military said, one soldier was killed and one wounded in a roadside bombing, also south of Baghdad.

The names of those killed and wounded were being withheld until family could be notified, the military said.

Meanwhile, Iraqi lawmakers expressed outrage and resolve Friday in a rare session of parliament on the Muslim holy day, a day after a suicide bomber ripped through their cafeteria in a brazen attack inside Baghdad's U.S.-guarded Green Zone.

Both Iraqi and American officials Friday revised down their estimates of those killed. The U.S. issued a statement saying one civilian was killed.

The blast is causing officials to review security procedures, in particular a rule that allows certain VIPs and bodyguards to pass through security without being searched at all, reports CBS News reporter Martin Seemungal.

The Associated Press reported that an al Qaeda-linked group had claimed responsibility for the blast. "A knight from the state of Islam ... reached the heart of the Green Zone ... the temporary headquarters of the mice of the infidel parliament and blew himself up among a gathering of the infidel masters," the Islamic State of Iraq said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site commonly used by insurgents.

The Islamic State, an umbrella group of eight insurgent organizations that includes al Qaeda in Iraq, said in Internet postings that it had delayed claiming responsibility to allow its men to flee from investigators who have been rounding up and questioning parliament employees.

"Expect more attacks, even stronger than the strike against (Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie) and the parliament," it said, referring to a March 23 suicide bombing attack that wounded al-Zubaie, the highest-ranking Sunni in the Iraqi government. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

A senior administration official tells CBS News that dissidents are attacking targets like the Green Zone and a historic bridge they brought down on the same day because increased American/Iraqi patrols have made it harder for them to attack the neighborhoods, reports CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante.

Iraqi parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani opened Friday's session by asking members of recite verses from the Quran to mourn the death of a "hero, the parliament member Mohammed Awad."

A red and white bouquet sat in place of Awad, a Sunni member of the moderate National Dialogue Front killed in Thursday's attack on the parliament cafeteria. Lawmakers ambled up to the podium to denounce the bombing, including one man with his arm in a sling and a woman wearing a neck brace.

The U.S. military said Friday that one Iraqi civilian was killed and 22 injured in the attack. The night before, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell had said eight people died.

Friday's meeting was "a clear message to all the terrorists and all those who dare try to stop this (political) process that we will sacrifice in order for it to continue," al-Mashhadani said.

"We feel today that we are stronger than yesterday," he said. "The parliament, government and the people are all the same — they are all in the same ship which, if it sinks, will make everyone sink."

"The more they (terrorists) act, the more solid we become. When they take from us one martyr, we will offer more martyrs," Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi said. "The more they target our unity, the stronger our unity becomes."

But the turnout was low because of a weekly driving ban on the Muslim day of rest.

"Very few parliament members showed up because of the curfew," said Mohammed Abu Bakr, head of the parliament's media office. "Also the MPs' turnout is very low today because most of them are visiting those who were wounded by the blast," he said.

Some additional members filed into the parliament room and took their seats after the session was under way, but the room remained less than half full. The meeting began late, and adjourned after about 90 minutes.

The parliament chamber bore no signs of damage, but cleanup had yet to begin elsewhere in the building, where investigators were still combing through the debris for clues as to who was behind the attack and how they penetrated the tightest security in Baghdad — the heavily fortified Green Zone compound, which houses the U.S. Embassy as well as offices of the Iraqi government.

"The cafeteria is still not clean. There is still flesh of the bomber on the floor," Abu Bakr said. "Broken glass has not been removed, and a meeting hall is still full of dust."

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh told lawmakers that the government "had received indications that this building would be targeted." Before the attack Thursday, security guards took the unusual precaution of using sniffer dogs to search inside the parliament building.
State-run Iraqiya television's transmission was draped Friday in a black mourning banner. Regular programming aired, but the screen had a black stripe across the upper left hand corner.

Several TV channels replayed images Friday of the moment of the attack and the minutes following: a flash and an orange ball of fire causing Jalaluddin al-Saghir, a startled parliament member who was being interviewed, to duck. Smoke and dust billowed through the area, and confused and frightened lawmakers and others could be heard screaming for help. Al-Saghir escaped injury.

But a woman was shown kneeling over what appeared to be a wounded or dead man near a table and chairs. The camera then focused on a bloody, severed leg — apparently that of the suicide bomber.

The stunning breach of security at parliament — along with another bombing the same day that destroyed a historic bridge across the mighty Tigris river and killed at least 11 people — struck a blow to a two-month-old U.S.-Iraqi effort to pacify the capital. Violence was down slightly in Baghdad, but the effort to put thousands of additional troops on the streets has failed to halt spectacular attacks like Thursday's.

Nassar al-Rubaie, head of the parliamentary bloc allied with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, accused the U.S. of lax security that allowed the bomber in.

"The occupation forces are in charge of security of this area. But no one dares to hold them responsible for this issue," he said. "The problem of the occupation is not inside or outside this hall, it is for all Iraqi people. Why don't we hold them completely responsible?"

Security officials at parliament, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said they believed the cafeteria bomber was a bodyguard of a Sunni lawmaker who was not among the casualties.

Caldwell said the attack bore the trademarks of al Qaeda in Iraq.

"We don't know at this point who it was. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by al Qaeda," he said.

U.S. forces captured 14 suspected al Qaeda in Iraq members in raids early Friday, the military said in a statement.

It was the second time in less than a month that a bodyguard wearing a suicide vest attacked a Sunni official. On March 23 a member of Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie's security detail exploded his suicide vest and seriously wounded al-Zubaie, the highest-ranking Sunni in the Iraqi government.

On Friday, police said 11 civilians had been killed in the bridge bombing a day earlier. Seven were killed in the explosion by a powerful suicide truck bomb, and four perished when their cars plummeted into the river below, police said. At least 39 people were injured, including three Iraqi soldiers. Two civilians are still missing, they said.

A roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded four others in southern Baghdad on Friday, police said. A civilian was also wounded.