Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Iraq

Woman, kids among Iraqi dead

Insurgents are blamed for dozens of decapitated and bullet-riddled corpses. Al-Qaida takes credit for hotel blast.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi authorities found 41 decomposed bodies - some bullet-riddled, others beheaded - at sites near the Syrian border and south of the capital, and said Wednesday that they included women and children who may have been killed because insurgents thought their families were collaborating with U.S. forces.

In Baghdad, a suicide bomber driving a garbage truck loaded with explosives and at least one other gunman shot their way into a parking lot in an attempt to blow up a hotel used by Western contractors. At least four people, including the attackers and a guard, were killed.

The U.S. Embassy said 30 Americans were among 40 people wounded in the blast. No Americans were killed. In an Internet statement, al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack on the Sadeer hotel, calling it the "hotel of the Jews."

While Sunni Arab insurgents have repeatedly targeted Westerners in Iraq, Shiite Muslims, top Iraqi officials and civil servants, even Muslim women are no longer safe.

Decapitated bodies of women have begun turning up in recent weeks, a note with the word "collaborator" usually pinned to their chests. Three women were gunned down Tuesday in one of Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods for being alleged collaborators. And in the northern city of Kirkuk, a woman identified as Nawal Mohammed, who worked with U.S. forces, was killed in a drive-by shooting, police said.

The decomposed bodies were found Tuesday after reports of their stench reached authorities.

Twenty-six of the dead were discovered in a field near Rumana, a village 12 miles east of the western city of Qaim, near the Syrian border. Each body was riddled with bullets. The dead were found wearing civilian clothes and one was a woman, police Capt. Muzahim al-Karbouli said.

The other site was south of Baghdad in Latifiya, where Iraqi troops found 15 headless bodies in a building at an abandoned army base, Defense Ministry Capt. Sabah Yassin said.

The bodies were those of 10 men, three women and two children. Their identities, like the others found in western Iraq, were not known, but insurgents may have viewed them or their relatives as collaborators.

Yassin said some of men found dead in Latifiya were thought to have been part of a group of Iraqi soldiers who were kidnapped by insurgents two weeks ago.

The gruesome discoveries were among 58 new killings in Iraq announced Wednesday, including the death of a U.S. soldier in a Baghdad roadside bombing.

Iraq's interim planning minister, Mahdi al-Hafidh, a Shiite, narrowly escaped death Wednesday after gunmen opened fire on his convoy in the capital. Two of his bodyguards were killed and two others were wounded.

"I'm fine, just sorry about the death of the guards, who were still young," he told state-run Al-Iraqiya TV. "It is a part of the crisis that Iraq is living, but we will keep going for the sake of Iraq, to get rid of terrorism and build a democratic country."

Qataa Abdul Nabi, the director general of the Shiite Endowment, was shot to death Tuesday as he drove home - the second high-ranking member of the Shiite charity to be killed in a week.

A car bombing targeted an American checkpoint outside a base in Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, and another exploded near U.S. troops close to Abu Ghraib, just west of the capital.

No other details were available, and the U.S. military could not be reached for comment. It was unclear if the dead U.S. soldier was killed in any of the attacks. The U.S. military said only that a soldier was killed and another was wounded by a bomb as they were patrolling around Baghdad.

As of Tuesday, at least 1,509 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,149 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The figures include four military civilians. The AP count is five higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EST Tuesday.

Police said the attack on the Sadeer hotel began when insurgents wearing police uniforms shot to death a guard at the Agriculture Ministry's gate, allowing the truck to enter a compound the ministry shares with the hotel. Guards fired on the vehicle and it exploded, carving a hole in the parking lot that was at least 30 feet wide and more than 10 feet deep.

In other violence:

Guerrillas struck a police patrol with a roadside bomb in the southern city of Basra, killing two police officers and wounding three, Lt. Col. Karim Al-Zaydi said.

Two police officers were killed and two others wounded in clashes with insurgents in the northern city of Mosul.

ROME - The prime minister on Wednesday disputed Washington's version of the events leading to the killing of an Italian intelligence agent by U.S. troops in Baghdad, saying the agent had notified the proper authorities that he was on his way to the airport after winning the release of a hostage.

The top U.S. general in Iraq said he had no indication that Italian officials gave notice of the route the Italians' car was taking. In a statement released after the shooting, the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which controls Baghdad, said the vehicle was speeding and refused to stop.

The statement said a U.S. patrol tried to warn a driver with hand and arm signals, by flashing white lights and firing shots in front of the car.

But in his first major address since Friday's shooting strained relations between the United States and Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told lawmakers the car carrying the intelligence agent Nicola Calipari and journalist Giuliana Sgrena was traveling at a slow speed and stopped immediately when a light was flashed.

Berlusconi said Calipari had notified an Italian liaison officer, waiting at the Baghdad airport along with an American officer, that they were on their way.

However, he added, "I'm sure that in a very short time every aspect of this will be clarified."

WASHINGTON - The Defense Department hasn't developed a plan to reimburse soldiers for equipment they've bought to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan despite requirements in a law passed last year, a senator says.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., asked details on the Pentagon's progress setting up the reimbursement program and questioned why it was not in place yet.

Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke said Rumsfeld will respond to Dodd's letter after he has reviewed it.

[Last modified March 10, 2005, 01:15:14]