BAGHDAD, March 26 -- Two American soldiers were killed here Saturday when a vehicle packed with explosives detonated next to a U.S. military convoy, while Iraqi forces said they had arrested more than 130 insurgents plotting attacks on Shiite Muslim pilgrims streaming south for one of their holiest days.
The men arrested near the town of Musayyib were preparing attacks on U.S.-allied forces and on Shiites gathering in their holy city of Karbala for Thursday's observance of Arbaeen, an official from the Iraqi Defense Ministry said. The day honors Imam Hussein, the prophet Mohammed's grandson, who was slain in the 7th century.
No detailed information about the soldiers' slayings was released. The two deaths, along with that of a Marine whose killing Friday in Anbar province was reported Saturday, brought the number of American military personnel killed in action in Iraq to 1,164.
The official said the raid south of Baghdad that resulted in the insurgents' capture also netted tons of munitions, including explosives and automatic weapons.
A Sunni organization confirmed that two Sunni clerics and 50 of their followers had been rounded up in Saturday's raid, Agence France-Presse reported.
Bomb attacks during Shiite religious festivals have killed hundreds since public observances of the holidays revived with the ouster of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated government two years ago.
In the predominantly Shiite city of Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, police blocked what they said was another planned attack on Shiite pilgrims when they arrested a Tunisian man as he tried to drive a car full of bombs through a checkpoint.
Not far from Hilla, a car bomb apparently targeting a police patrol in the southern community of Haswah killed two townspeople instead, said Maj. Gen. Qais Hamza, the provincial police chief.
And in the northern city of Mosul, a bomb planted on a road killed four civilians, and gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier when they opened fire on his unarmored car in a passing convoy, Iraqi military officials said Saturday.
Special correspondent Bassam Sebti in Baghdad contributed to this report.
