Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

U.S. presence increased in Baghdad; bombing kills 15 people in market

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 14, 2006

BAGHDAD - U.S. troops have sharply increased patrols in Baghdad since the spike in sectarian violence, a U.S. general said Thursday, raising questions about the capabilities of Iraqi forces. A car bomb killed least 15 people in a Shiite area of the capital.

At least 21 other people, including an American soldier, were killed Thursday. Not included in the toll was an unknown number of Iraqi police killed near Taji.

With sectarian violence on the rise in Baghdad, the U.S. command boosted the number of armed patrols in the capital from 12,000 in February to 20,000 since the beginning of March, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said.

Tit-for-tat killings between Shiites and Sunnis soared after the Feb. 22 bombing of a major Shiite shrine in Samarra, triggering reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics. Violence was worse in religiously mixed areas of Baghdad, forcing the Americans to return to neighborhoods such as Shula that had been turned over to the Iraqis.

That casts doubt on the capability of Iraqi forces to deal with sectarian violence, despite assurances from American officials that the new army and police forces were gaining steadily in professional skills.

The renewed American presence has not been enough to stop the carnage. The car bomb exploded in a vegetable market in Shula, police said. At least 15 people were killed and 22 were wounded. Last week, a car bomb injured 13 people in the same neighborhood.

A roadside bomb Thursday killed a U.S. soldier southwest of Baghdad, the military said. The U.S. command also reported that a Marine died Wednesday of wounds suffered in hostile action near Baghdad.

Late Thursday, insurgents ambushed a convoy of Iraqi police traveling between Najaf and the U.S. base at Taji, police said. Iraqi 1st Lt. Mouayiad Shukor said 17 officers were killed, but the governor of Najaf and the police chief for the area would not give a figure.

In Baghdad, Mahmoud al-Hashimi, whose brother heads Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political party, was slain along with a companion Thursday as they drove through a mostly Shiite area, the Iraqi Islamic Party said.

Separately, the U.S. military said four suicide bombers - instead of the two initially reported - were behind last week's deadly attack on a Shiite mosque that killed at least 85 worshipers in northern Baghdad.

The U.S. military said three male bombers made it inside the mosque complex in Buratha, and one believed to be a woman was just outside the entrance.

Information from the Washington Post was used in this report.

[Last modified April 14, 2006, 01:58:12]