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Last week in Iraq

By TIMES WIRES
Published January 21, 2007

Attacks

- Police said 78 people were reported killed or found dead Jan. 14.

- Authorities said 55 people were killed or found dead Monday.

- At least 142 Iraqis were killed or found dead Tuesday, including 65 students who died when twin car bombs tore through a leading Baghdad university.

- The United Nations said Tuesday that 34,452 Iraqi civilians were killed in sectarian violence in 2006, far more than the number reported by the government.

- Police reported 70 people were killed or found dead in Iraq on Wednesday. A U.S. woman, Andrea Parhamovich of Perry, Ohio, was killed in an ambush on her convoy in Baghdad. She was working for the National Democratic Institute of Washington.

- Police reported 59 people killed or found dead Thursday. A triple car bombing killed 10 in a wholesale vegetable market in a south Baghdad Shiite neighborhood.

- At least 27 people were reported killed or found dead Friday.

Military

- The U.S. military said a soldier was killed Jan. 14 in Baghdad by a roadside bomb and a soldier was killed Jan. 13 in northern Iraq by an explosive.

- Four U.S. soldiers were killed Monday by an explosive in Ninevah province, the military said Tuesday.

- An American soldier died Wednesday in Anbar province, and another died Monday in Iraq, the military said Wednesday.

- A U.S. sailor died Wednesday from a noncombat related incident, the military said Thursday.

- Army Lt. Ehren Watada, 28, who called the Iraq war illegal and refused to deploy, cannot base his court-martial defense on the war's legality, a military judge has ruled. Watada planned to argue at the Feb. 5 trial that the war violated Army regulations that wars must be waged in accordance with the United Nations charter. Watada is charged with missing troop movement last year. He is also accused of conduct unbecoming an officer for statements he made to journalists and at a veterans convention. He faces up to six years in prison.

- A Marine corporal pleaded guilty Thursday to killing an unarmed Iraqi civilian last year, and said he and other servicemen went after him because they were "sick and tired of getting bombed." Cpl. Trent Thomas, 25, is the first of those accused in the case to plead guilty to murder. Prosecutors said the eight-man squad kidnapped Hashim Ibrahim Awad and later killed him.

- Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, predicted Friday that some of the extra troops President Bush is sending could make an impact and start returning home by late summer.

- A U.S. soldier was killed Thursday by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, the military said Friday.

Rebuilding

- Faced with substantial opposition both in Congress and among the American public to their Iraq plans, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney vowed Jan. 14 to forge ahead with the deployment of 21,500 additional troops.

- Syria's leader promised to help ease tensions in neighboring Iraq during Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's visit to Damascus on Jan. 14, just days after Bush accused Syria of backing the Iraqi insurgency. Talabani is the first Iraqi president to visit Damascus in nearly three decades.

- Saddam Hussein's half brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former leader of the Revolutionary Court, were hanged Monday for their role in the killings of 148 Shiites in 1982 after an attempt to assassinate Hussein in Dujail. Ibrahim, former head of the intelligence service, was decapitated, outraging Sunnis. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the hangings of Hussein and the two others were mishandled and should have been carried out with "greater dignity."

- Bush said Tuesday the unruly execution of Hussein "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing," making it harder to persuade the U.S. public that Iraq's government will keep promises central to his plan for a troop increase.

- Commanders of the Mahdi Army, which is believed responsible for much of the continuing bloodshed in Iraq, said Thursday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki no longer protects the group comprising followers of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

- U.S. and Iraqi forces detained a top aide to Sadr on Friday. The seizure of Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji in a raid was the latest operation aimed at eviscerating the leadership of the Mahdi Army.

Deaths

As of Saturday, 3,052 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. Identifications as reported by the U.S. military and not previously published:

- Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph D. Alomar, 22, Brooklyn, N.Y.; noncombat related incident Wednesday; Camp Bucca.

- Army Sgt. Ian C. Anderson, 22, Prairie Village, Kan.; explosion Monday; Mosul.

- Army Sgt. John E. Cooper, 29, Ewing, Ky.; explosion Monday; Mosul.

- Army 2nd Lt. Mark J. Daily, 23, Irvine, Calif.; explosion Monday; Mosul.

- Army Spc. Matthew T. Grimm, 21, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.; explosion Monday; Mosul.

- Army Spc. James D. Riekena, 22, Redmond, Wash.; explosion Jan. 14; Baghdad.

- Army Sgt. Paul T. Sanchez, 32, Irving, Texas; explosion Jan. 14; Baghdad.

- Army Spc. Collin R. Schockmel, 19, Richwood, Texas; Tuesday; Ramadi.

- Army Sgt. Gregroy A. Wright, 28, Boston; explosion Jan. 13; Muqdadiyah.

[Last modified January 21, 2007, 01:15:29]