World

Iraqi Guards Kill Female Would-Be Bomber

June 5, 2007 / 8:50 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Alert guards gunned down a black-clad woman Tuesday at a police recruiting station in Baghdad, a suicide bomber who then exploded before their eyes. But another bomber succeeded, detonating an explosives-laden car at a checkpoint in Ramadi and killing six policemen.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq acknowledged sectarian violence was on the rise.

Among the day's attacks, gunmen assassinated a local leader of Muqtada al-Sadr's radical Shiite Muslim faction south of Baghdad, and to the north insurgents ambushed an Iraqi army vehicle, killing an undetermined number of soldiers.

As the sun rose, reports also began filtering in of headless corpses and other bodies found dumped around Iraq, many presumed victims of the relentless Shiite-against-Sunni bloodshed.

Gen. David Petraeus, the overall U.S. commander in Iraq, told CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan the number of sectarian killings had fallen off since the "surge" of an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began in February, an effort to restore order in Baghdad and nearby areas. But the number rose in May, he acknowledged.

"What all of the commanders on the ground have said repeatedly is that this is going to get harder before it gets easier," he said.

Petraeus told Logan the full contingent of extra troops would be on the ground in Iraq "in about two weeks or so … and you're going to see the launch of a number of different operations in a number of areas, to go after al Qaeda and other extremist elements."

Figures compiled by The Associated Press showed that at least 2,155 Iraqis were killed last month, making it the third-deadliest month for Iraqis since the AP began tracking civilian casualties in April 2005.

Some Interior Ministry officials put the figure at 2,123 based on police reports. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf insisted Tuesday those figures were exaggerated. He said civilian casualties actually were down 34 percent in May, compared with April, although he refused to provide figures.

The Iraqi government has not released its own casualty figures for months, citing concerns they would be used to portray the security situation negatively.

Suicide bombings continue to regularly claim scores of victims in Iraq's violence, principally aimed at Shiite targets and blamed on Sunni extremists of the group al Qaeda in Iraq. But female bombers remain relatively rare.

Khalaf said a woman clad in a black abaya, the traditional Islamic cloak, approached a group of police recruits in east Baghdad's Canal district Tuesday.

"She didn't obey the guards' orders to stop and they shot her and she immediately blew up," Khalaf told The Associated Press.

She was dead at the scene. A police officer who witnessed the incident, who asked anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to the media, said three police recruits were lightly injured.

A short time later, in Amiriyah, a town on the outskirts of Fallujah, a car bomb exploded killing 15 people, said Marine Maj. Jeff Pool, a U.S. military spokesman for the area.

The suicide bomber struck a gathering of anti-al Qaeda tribal leaders in troubled Anbar province, blowing up his car as they met in Amiriyah, according to officials.

The elders belonged to the al-Buissa tribe, a majority of whom have joined in an alliance, the Anbar Salvation Council, against the group al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraqi officials said. At least 13 people were wounded, according to Pool.

In other developments:

More than 4 million Iraqis have now been displaced by violence in the country, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday, warning that the figure will continue to rise as Iraqi authorities struggle to provide food and medical services amid the current poor security situation. The number of Iraqis who have fled the country as refugees has risen to 2.2 million, said Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

A Shiite Muslim cleric affiliated with the anti-American Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr was shot and killed as his drove his automobile in Jibala, a town 40 miles south of Baghdad, police said. A police officer identified the victim as Sheik Abdul-Rahim Mohammed Naief, in charge of the al-Sadr office in Jibala.

Outside an Iraqi army headquarters in Anah, about 100 miles northwest of Baghdad, an army Humvee leaving the base came under rocket-propelled grenade fire that set it ablaze and killed all the soldiers inside, an army officer reported, speaking on condition of anonymity since he was not authorized to speak with the media. The number of dead was not immediately reported.

In Baghdad, the U.S. command insisted it would continue the search for two abducted U.S. soldiers despite the release of a video Monday by insurgents linked to al Qaeda claiming they had killed the two, along with a third missing soldier whose body was found previously.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave the Iraqi government a gentle prod Tuesday to move faster toward political reconciliation during the American troop buildup in Baghdad.

"We would certainly be happier if there were faster progress on the political front," Gates told reporters at a news conference during a trip to Kyrgyzstan.

He noted that the Iraqis had missed a May 31 deadline for passing a hydrocarbons law — one of many political obstacles yet to be overcome.

Gates was asked whether it appeared to him that U.S. and Iraqi forces were making slower-than-expected progress in establishing security in Baghdad neighborhoods, as news reports have indicated in recent days. He said he had not seen any early projections by Petraeus of how many neighborhoods were expected to be cleared of insurgents by this point.

"So I'm not in a position to judge whether that is faster or slower than General Petraeus anticipated," he said. "If it's slower it's clearly because al Qaeda and others are trying to make as much difficulty as possible for us and for the Iraqi government."

Petraeus told Logan it was too early to judge whether the counterinsurgency push is working. "We haven't even started the surge, the full surge, yet, so I'll answer that in September," when he is scheduled to report to Washington on the operation, he said.