As Violence Deepens, So Does Pessimism

"There was a list of 14 names in the marketplace," including that of his brother, Thayer said. "But later, it was refuted publicly. I guess someone did not listen."

Atwan's death closely followed the May 8 detonation of a remote-control bomb outside the house of Muayyad Ayad, a police official from Habhab, 13 miles north of Baqubah. Ayad survived, but two female bystanders and a male cousin were killed. The same day in nearby Miqdadiyah, gunmen attacked the mayor's house, injuring an Iraqi policeman.

To the west in Samarra, police were also a target last week. On Tuesday, insurgents raided a police station, drove off seven officers and blew up the building and two patrol cars. A group called the Army of Truth circulated a leaflet that called for U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces to leave town. They also said that any building flying the new, U.S.-approved blue and white Iraqi flag would be blown up.

In Fallujah, west of the capital, a U.S.-endorsed agreement to allow patrols by former members of ousted president Saddam Hussein's army quieted the city after a month of combat. Nonetheless, the area around Fallujah is heavy with roadside bombs and ambushes. Over the weekend, U.S. Marines reported on a goodwill visit to the town of Kharma, on the road from Baghdad to Fallujah. As soon as they left, insurgents peppered the town with rockets, according to the 1st Marine Division.

The roads south from Baghdad have become alleys for ambushes and kidnapping, area residents say. Two Russian electrical workers, nabbed near Latifiyah, were released Monday after two weeks in captivity; one of their comrades was killed during the kidnapping.

Even residents of Latifiyah said they had been terrorized by gangs of insurgents. They insist the attackers are not local people, but fundamentalist Wahhabi Muslims hiding among the date groves. "We don't use the main road to Latifiyah," said Ali Hamza Khazraji, a tribal leader who took a reporter to his home last week.

"These Wahhabis hate the Christians. Foreigners can't come here," he said, explaining the kidnappings. "We have lots of trees. They can shoot and hide."

Violence in the south has forced U.S. troops originally slated for duty in and near Baghdad to fight far afield. U.S.-led forces killed about 50 members of Sadr's militia on Monday, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmit told reporters in Baghdad. U.S. troops killed 17 militiamen in Karbala and 13 more in other areas, including Najaf, where the 31-year-old Sadr has taken refuge. A helicopter rocketed some vehicles in southeast Iraq, killing insurgents who were loading weapons onto them, Kimmit said.

In Nasiriyah, Italian paramilitary police withdrew from a downtown government building to a base on the outskirts of the city after three days of taking fire from Sadr's forces and suffering one fatality. Kimmit denied that the Italians had retreated. "They just moved to a more secure camp," he said.

He also brushed aside reports that plans to transfer U.S. troops from South Korea to Iraq had been prompted by the fighting in the south. On Sunday, Kim Sook, a Foreign Ministry official, told reporters in Seoul that "the U.S. government has told us that it needs to select some U.S. troops in South Korea and send them to Iraq to cope with the worsening situation."

The issue of who should be in charge of Iraqi security was hotly debated here in the aftermath of Salim's assassination. Members of the Governing Council argued that Iraqis must be put in control -- now -- with forces drawn from existing militias. The United States is seeking to retain command of the Iraqi security services that are being assembled and trained with American money and has largely resisted creation of units from party or ethnic-based militias.

Ahmed Chalabi, a council member who heads the Iraqi National Congress and has close ties with the Pentagon, said at a news conference Monday that "the Iraqi government must have exclusive and complete control over the army and security services of Iraq."

Hamid Bayati, a spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, another party on the Governing Council, said: "Iraqis know the country. They are more capable in getting information. They should be responsible."