BAGHDAD, March 3 -- Insurgents continued targeting Iraqi security forces Thursday, killing five policemen and wounding at least six others in three separate attacks in Baghdad and Baqubah, Iraqi security officials said. At least one bystander and four insurgents were also killed in the attacks, they said.
The killings followed two bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday in which 12 Iraqi soldiers were killed and a massive car bombing Monday in the central city of Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, that killed at least 125 people. Although that blast purportedly targeted Iraqi military recruits, many of the dead included shoppers at a local market.
Marines endure a dust storm in western Iraq. A state of emergency covering most of the country has been extended.
(David Mdzinarishvili -- Reuters)
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Iraq War Deaths
Total number of U.S. military deaths and names of the U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war as announced by the Pentagon yesterday:
1,494 Fatalities
In hostile actions: 1,141
In non-hostile actions: 353
Pfc. Danny L. Anderson, 29, of Corpus Christi, Tex.; 26th Forward Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga. Killed Feb. 27 in Baghdad.
Sgt. Julio E. Negron, 28, of Pompano Beach, Fla.
Spec. Lizbeth Robles, 31, of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
Both soldiers were assigned to the Army's 360th Transportation Company, 68th Corps Support Battalion, 43rd Area Support Group, based at Fort Carson, Colo. They died Feb. 28 in Baiji in a noncombat-related vehicle accident.
All troops were killed in action unless otherwise indicated.
Total fatalities include four civilian employees of the Defense Department.
A full list of casualties is available online at www.washingtonpost.com/nation
SOURCE: Defense Department's www.defenselink.mil/newsThe Washington Post
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The attacks are part of a campaign by insurgents against Iraqi security forces that has escalated since the Jan. 30 elections, from which a coalition of predominantly Shiite Muslim parties -- the United Iraqi Alliance -- emerged with a slim majority in Iraq's 275-member parliament. The coalition is negotiating with other parties to forge a broad-based government that could include ethnic Kurds, secular Shiites and possibly Sunni Muslims, but competing political demands and spiraling violence are complicating the effort.
"These acts just continue to hold Iraqi communities hostage to terrorist elements in the hope to divide communities," the interim national security adviser, Mowaffak Rubaie, said in a statement. "The Iraqi government will go after and hunt down each and every one of these terrorists, whether in Iraq or elsewhere."
The U.S. military on Thursday announced the deaths of three soldiers the day before. One soldier assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in Babil province, south of Baghdad, and two soldiers were killed after their vehicle was hit by a bomb while on nighttime patrol in central Baghdad, according to a military statement. It did not provide details.
Because of the continuing violence, the government announced Thursday that interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi had extended a state of emergency until March 31 in all parts of the country except the Kurdish north, where the situation is calmer. The state of emergency effectively imposes martial law and gives the government wide powers to impose curfews, restrict movement and suspend liberties.
Thursday's violence began in Baghdad at 7:45 a.m., when a car approaching the entrance to Iraq's Interior Ministry did not slow down, and suspicious guards opened fire on it, killing the driver and causing an explosion, according to Col. Adnan Abdul Rahman, a ministry spokesman.
About 30 seconds later, a Jeep with three men inside refused orders to stop as it approached the same checkpoint, and soldiers again opened fire, killing the three occupants and causing the vehicle to explode, he said.
In all, five policemen and four insurgents were killed in the incidents, Abdul Rahman said.
In Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, a car bomb detonated just as a convoy carrying the city's police chief was pulling out of police headquarters, according to Lt. Col. Mudhafar Jubouri of the Baqubah police. One bystander was killed and five police officers were wounded.
"All Iraqis have become targets now, particularly people who work with Americans, Iraqi police or the ING [Iraqi National Guard]," said Samih Salim, 26, who works as a handyman and porter in a supermarket near the site of Thursday's blasts in Baghdad. "If the resistance can do all this, why don't they target the American troops, who are easily recognizable?"
"I spent eight years in the war against Iran. Now wars are over, but they have turned the violence against Iraqis," said Mohammed Salah Aldin, 48, the owner of an electronics shop. "I'm wondering, hasn't the time come to let the Iraqis live in peace?"
Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki and Sahar Negeeb in Baghdad, Hasan Shammari in Baqubah and Marwan Anie in Kirkuk contributed to this report.
