World

Toll Mounts Ahead Of Iraq Vote

October 1, 2005 / 4:38 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Sunni-led insurgents killed at least nine people with a car bomb in a crowded vegetable market on Friday, the Muslim day of worship, in the second blast against Shiite civilians in as many days, police said. The death toll rose to nearly 100 from the previous day's attacks in another Shiite town.

Elsewhere, in the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi police convoy was ambushed late Thursday, killing four policemen and wounding one, said police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim.

The new surge of violence — anticipated by President Bush — before an Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's constitution has killed at least 194 people, including 13 U.S. service members, in the past five days.

The insurgents have vowed to wreck the referendum, whose passage is crucial to prospects for starting a withdrawal of American troops.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, the country's most feared insurgent group, has declared "all-out war" on the Shiite majority that dominates Iraq's government. Moderate Sunni Arab leaders have urged their community to reject the constitution, saying it will fragment Iraq and leave them weak compared to Shiites and Kurds.

In related developments:

Thursday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of five U.S. soldiers a day earlier in a roadside bombing during combat in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a hotbed of Iraq's insurgency. It was the deadliest single attack against American troops in more than a month, bringing to 1,934 the number of U.S. service members who have died since Iraq's war started in March 2003.

The Army is closing the books on one of the leanest recruiting years since it became an all-volunteer service three decades ago, missing its enlistment target by the largest margin since 1979 and raising questions about its plans for growth. Many in Congress believe the Army needs to get bigger — perhaps by 50,000 soldiers over its current 1 million — in order to meet its many overseas commitments, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Photographs showing U.S. soldiers tormenting Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison tarnished America's reputation when they were released last year, with some critics of the U.S.-led occupation citing the scandal as vindication. On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the release of dozens more pictures of abuse from the infamous Baghdad prison — potentially opening the military up to more embarrassment from a scandal that already has stirred outrage around the world.

CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports from Baghdad that the

progress of Iraqi troops is mixed (video)

. If U.S. forces pulled out tomorrow, there wouldn't be any Iraqi battalions that could fight alone and that means everything from logistics to signals, to heavy weapons to close air support.

On Wednesday, in a suicide bombing in northwestern Iraq, a woman disguised in a man's robes and headdress slipped into a line of army recruits and detonated explosives strapped to her body, killing at least six recruits and wounding 35. It was the first known suicide attack by a woman in Iraq's insurgency.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has been struggling to negotiate changes to the charter in hopes of winning Sunni Arab support, and senior U.S. officials in Washington have said they are confident that Iraq's draft constitution will be approved. But those officials also have said that if the constitution is defeated, Iraq could descend into anarchy.

On Friday, a car bomb exploded in a bustling vegetable market in the mostly Shiite city of Hillah on Friday, killing at least nine people and wounding 30, said police Dr. Ahmed Sami at the local hospital. The vehicle was parked when it detonated at about 9:30 a.m. in the city 60 miles south of Baghdad.

As Iraqi police and soldiers sealed off the Al-Sharia vegetable market, emergency workers lifted wounded victims and dead bodies into ambulances from streets covered with pools of blood and shattered vegetable stands.

In Iraq, the weekend is Friday and Saturday, and before heading to services at mosques midday Friday, the Muslim day of worship, many Iraqis shop in their local markets.

On Thursday, three suicide attackers exploded near-simultaneous car bombs in the heart of the bustling, mainly Shiite town of Balad, 50 miles north of the capital, killing at least 99 people and wounding 124, police and hospital officials said.

Apparently aimed at killing a large number of Shiite civilians, the string of bombings started just before sunset Thursday when the first blast ripped through an open-air market crowded with Iraqis buying vegetables. The next bomb exploded at a bank just yards away, followed by a third on a nearby street of clothing shops.

Most of the fatalities were civilians, though the wounded included the police chief and four officers, said Dr. Qassim Hatam, the director of Balad hospital.

New information about the Balad attack also emerged Friday, when police said the insurgents had hit a police checkpoint in the city with six mortar rounds at the same time, killing one civilian. U.S. soldiers based there returned the fire and detained an Iraqi suspect from a nearby home after finding traces of explosives on his body, the military said.

In Washington, the top American commander in Iraq said Thursday that the process of withdrawing U.S. troops depends greatly on the results of the referendum and elections set to follow if the constitution passes. "The next 75 days are going to be critical," Gen. George Casey told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

But Sunni Arab success in rejecting the constitution would set back the political process for months, prolonging Iraq's political instability.

Sunnis make up only 20 percent of the population, but they could defeat the charter because of a loophole in voting rules: If two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote "no," the referendum fails — even if an overall majority approves. There are four provinces where Sunnis could potentially cross that margin.

Sunni leaders complain the constitution does not emphasize Iraq's unity and Arab character. They say its federal system — which would allow Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north to form mini-states — will leave Sunnis in a weak middle region, cheated of oil resources.