Insurgents Kill 160 in Baghdad

The other attacks included two car bombings that killed a total of 26 people, one that targeted an Iraqi army convoy and killed three soldiers, and two that hit U.S. military convoys, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, said that he knew of three U.S. soldiers wounded in the day's attacks and that none had been reported killed.

Separately, attackers opened fire on a car carrying Iraqi police officers, killing one, and then detonated a car bomb when other officers responded, killing four more people, police said. A separate rocket attack killed two Iraqi civilians.

In Taji, a town just north of Baghdad, men wearing the uniforms of Iraqi security forces dragged 17 men out of their homes, then handcuffed, blindfolded and shot them, news agencies reported.

A U.S. military convoy came under intense attack in the late afternoon, first with a roadside bomb and then, half an hour later, with a car bomb, police said. A reporter watched as U.S. forces traded gunfire with hidden assailants at the scene.

One of the final bombings of the day hit outside the Green Zone, the concrete- and razor-wire barricaded base of U.S. officials and the Iraqi government. There was no immediate official word on casualties.

The estimated death toll of more than 160 made Wednesday the deadliest day of insurgent violence in Baghdad since the United States and its allies invaded Iraq in March 2003. The deadliest day of insurgent violence nationwide was March 2, 2004, when at least 181 people were killed in mortar and bomb attacks on Shiite shrines in Karbala and Baghdad.

The violence continued Thursday morning when a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood. An Iraqi official said five Interior Ministry commandos were killed in the blast. The Associated Press reported that 21 people were killed -- 16 policemen and five civilians -- and that 21 others were wounded.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, who was visiting Dearborn, Mich., as part of a U.S. tour, condemned Wednesday's attacks and declared that his government's "rational, political struggle" would prevail over "criminal acts," the AP reported. "I share with the people their sorrow and grief. They are martyrs," Jafari said.

Survivors condemned the insurgents but blamed their government as well. "We voted for Jafari so he can help us get rid of terrorism. He cannot," Hussein Lami, a laborer, said at the site of the first bombing. "He must admit now that he cannot do it" and resign.

"Every day I am losing one of my friends or my relatives," Lami said.

Wednesday's carnage tested the ability of U.S. and Iraqi forces to maintain security shortly before two events that insurgents are widely expected to target: a Shiite pilgrimage this week that is expected to draw millions to the holy city of Karbala, and an Oct. 15 national referendum on Iraq's draft constitution. While voter registration among Sunnis has soared ahead of the vote, Zarqawi has declared that anyone who goes near a polling place is a legitimate target.

Growing political violence in much of the country also threatens what U.S. officials have said is their goal of bringing the insurgency to a level that is manageable by Iraqi forces ahead of any U.S. withdrawal.

Special correspondent Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.