World

Baghdad Blasts Kill 2 GIs

December 29, 2003 / 6:30 AM EST / CBS/AP

Roadside bombs in and near Baghdad killed two American soldiers and two Iraqi children Sunday, a day after a coordinated guerrilla assault in a southern city killed 19 people and wounded nearly 200, the U.S. military said.

In other developments:

U.S. initiatives to transform Iraq's economy, political system and security forces have been dropped over the last few months as the United States works toward a summer handover of sovereignty to Iraq, the Washington Post reports. Plans to privatize Iraqi factories, overhaul its food rationing system, write a constitution, and disarm militias have be set aside.

The number of GIs killed and wounded in Iraq has more than doubled in the last four months, compared to the four months from May 1 to Aug. 30, the Washington Post reports. The casualty rate has not let up since Saddam Hussein was captured on Dec. 13; since then 14 U.S. soldiers have died.

In one of Sunday's attacks, a bomb exploded west of Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier and wounding three others, the military said.

The soldier who was killed, from the 82nd Airborne Division, was in a convoy struck by militants near Fallujah, west of Baghdad. The three wounded soldiers were evacuated.

Earlier, a blast in Baghdad killed an American soldier and two Iraqi children, and wounded five American soldiers, their Iraqi interpreter and eight members of the Iraqi civil defense corps, said Sgt. Patrick Compton of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division.

The Baghdad bombing attack against soldiers from the Army's 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment occurred in the eastern neighborhood of Karrada.

"It was a bad one," Compton said. "It's a real densely populated area of town."

Overnight, U.S. forces acting on a tip from an Iraqi informant found about 580 rockets buried near Abayachi, a village northwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the Army's 4th Infantry Division.

The stash of 57 mm rockets was unusually large, indicating it might have been intended for sale to insurgents.

"We ruined some arms dealer's day," Aberle said.

Also Saturday night, bombs destroyed four liquor stores in the northern city of Kirkuk. Islamic militants have carried out similar attacks in the past since alcohol is forbidden under Islamic law.

On Sunday, hundreds of mourners joined the funeral procession for victims of the biggest rebel attack since Saddam Hussein was captured Dec. 13. Suicide bombers and assailants with mortars and grenade launchers blasted two coalition military bases and the governor's office in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala on Saturday.

Six coalition soldiers — four Bulgarians and two Thais; six Iraqi police officers; and a civilian died Saturday. A fifth Bulgarian soldier died Sunday.

Also Sunday, five Iraqis wounded in the attacks died, the Polish news agency PAP reported, quoting Iraqi health official Saad al-Nasrawi. More than 170 people, mostly civilians, were wounded.

In Thailand on Sunday, government and military officials debated the deployment, with one senator calling for a withdrawal of the country's 422 non-combat troops, mostly medics and engineers. The prime minister vowed Sunday to keep the troops in Iraq.

The Thai and Bulgarian troops are part of a multinational force of 9,500 soldiers led by Poland that controls south-central Iraq. Its commander, Gen. Andrzej Tyszkiewicz, called the ambush the most serious attack suffered by coalition forces in that region.

"It was a coordinated, massive attack planned on a big scale and intended to do much harm," Tyszkiewicz said.

Five suspects were detained in connection with the Karbala attack, a spokesman for the Polish-led multinational force said Sunday.

Insurgents might have targeted Karbala, some 70 miles south of Baghdad, on the assumption that troops there would be more vulnerable, less battle-tested than those in the Sunni areas north and west of Baghdad where fighting is more common.

"We expected these attacks because Karbala was suspiciously peaceful," said Nikola Kolev, the Bulgarian army chief of staff. "We improved security measures every day but terrorists change their tactics all the time."

Bulgaria, a staunch supporter of the U.S. military campaign in Iraq, has a 485-member light infantry battalion in Iraq. Deputy Prime Minister Plamen Panayotov reaffirmed that his country would not withdraw from Iraq.

"This tragedy is proof that all efforts have to be united in the global fight against terrorism," Panayotov said.

Six Iraqi police officers and an Iraqi woman living next to one of the military bases were killed in Karbala, said Ali al-Arzawi, deputy director of the General Hospital. Some 135 Iraqi civilians and police officers also were wounded, many lightly, he said.

In Baghdad, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said a total of 37 coalition soldiers, including five Americans, were wounded.

Despite the attacks in Karbala, where Saddam conducted a bloody crackdown on Shiite opponents in 1991, U.S. military officials said the number of rebel assaults has dropped from about 50 a day in mid-September to an average of about 15 a day.

Separately, France's defense minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, said Sunday the United States has "finally realized the complexity" of the situation in Iraq, including the need to transfer control to Iraqis quickly.