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17 Iraqi Officers Are Killed In Ambush of Police Convoy
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At least 18 other Iraqis were either killed by gunmen or found dead elsewhere in the country, according to police and news service reports. Among the dead were seven Sunni employees of a construction company in the Shiite-dominated southern city of Basra who were among 10 people kidnapped on Thursday morning. The other three workers were released, while an interpreter who had been working with British troops in Basra and had been kidnapped on Wednesday was found dead.
A roadside bomb also killed a U.S. soldier on patrol southwest of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. It also announced the death of a Marine in a bomb attack on Wednesday.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the chief spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, said that insurgents with ties to al-Qaeda and its leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, were attempting to derail a political agreement between Iraq's ethnic and sectarian factions and that attacks would grow in intensity.
Zarqawi "still wants to stop the formation of the national unity government, and the closer they get, the more intense the enemy's operations become," Lynch said at a news conference.
Lynch also said U.S. forces had killed a senior al-Qaeda leader in a raid in Baqubah on March 27. He said Rafid Ibrahim Fattah had been dubbed an "al-Qaeda ambassador" by leaders in the organization and was responsible for kidnappings.
While Iraqis blame al-Qaeda for many of the most violent attacks in the country, many Sunnis also accuse Shiite politicians and militias connected to their political parties of carrying out kidnappings and killings. Sunni political leaders have accused Shiite groups of killing or abducting at least 83 Sunni Arabs in the past two days alone.
One of the Shiite leaders Sunnis say they fear most is Moqtada al-Sadr, a popular, radical cleric whose Mahdi Army militia is blamed for many attacks against Sunnis. In a letter issued Thursday, Sadr told his followers they should not provoke sectarian strife and asked Iraqis for forgiveness.
"Pardon me if anything happened from my side," Sadr's letter said. "Let us open up a new chapter of history."
Sarhan reported from Najaf. Correspondent Jonathan Finer and special correspondents Saad al-Izzi and K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report.
