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Iraq

String of car bombs kill at least 60 in Iraq

BAGHDAD - Three suicide attackers exploded near-simultaneous car bombs in the heart of a bustling, mainly Shiite town Thursday, killing at least 60 people and wounding 70 amid a new surge of violence before an Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's constitution.

Until Thursday, Balad - 50 miles north of Baghdad and the site of a major U.S. military air base - had seen few major attacks.

The constitution's passage is crucial to prospects for starting a withdrawal of American troops, but Sunni insurgents have vowed to wreck the referendum. Al-Qaida in Iraq has declared "all-out war" on the Shiite majority that dominates Iraq's government, and moderate Sunni Arab leaders called on their community to reject the constitution, saying it will fragment Iraq and leave them weak compared to Shiites and Kurds.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has been struggling to negotiate changes to the charter in hopes of winning Sunni Arab support. Frustrating his efforts, Sunnis said U.S. troops raided the homes of two Sunni leaders on Thursday, fueling their sense of alienation in the political process. The U.S. military said it conducted several raids in neighborhoods where the leaders live but could not identify the homes involved.

Also Thursday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of five U.S. soldiers Wednesday in a roadside bombing during combat in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a hotbed of Iraq's insurgency. It was the deadliest single attack against U.S. troops in more than a month. More than 140 people, including 13 U.S. service members, have been killed in the past four days.

In Washington, the top American commander in Iraq told Congress on Thursday that only one Iraqi army battalion seems capable of fighting without U.S. help, leaving some Democrats and Republicans worried about worsening conditions there despite his assurances that the overall military strategy is working.

Gen. George Casey didn't give a reason when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the number of Iraqi army battalions rated by U.S. officers as capable of fighting without U.S. help had dropped from three in June.

And a Marine investigation found that a helicopter crash in Iraq in January that killed 30 Marines and a sailor - the deadliest air tragedy in more than two years of combat - resulted from human error, not mechanical failure or hostile fire.

[Last modified September 30, 2005, 01:37:04]