Shelling Kills 22 Prisoners In Iraq

90 Others Are Injured; Attack Motive Unclear

BAGHDAD April 20 -- Insurgents launched a mortar attack on the former Abu Ghraib prison outside the capital on Tuesday, killing 22 Iraqi prisoners and injuring more than 90 others. The U.S. military said those killed in the 18-shell barrage were either former members of Saddam Hussein's government or people involved in attacks on American forces.

Abu Ghraib, located about 20 miles west of Baghdad, has been converted into a U.S. detention center, with an estimated 5,000 detainees. While there was speculation that insurgents sought to provoke an uprising at the prison, the attackers possibly believed that large numbers of U.S. troops were housed in the sprawling facility, which is surrounded by high concrete walls. The area around the prison has recently been the scene of fierce fighting between U.S.-led forces and insurgents.

[Blasts early Wednesday at three police stations in the southern city of Basra killed at least 40 people, including schoolchildren, news services reported, citing witnesses and a hospital official.

[At one of the stations, four vehicles were seen destroyed, including two school buses. At least one of the buses appeared to have been full of passengers, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.]

Halliburton Co., a huge contractor in the reconstruction of Iraq, said on Tuesday that three of four bodies found earlier this month near the site of an attack on a fuel convoy, close to Abu Ghraib, were its employees. Halliburton and its subcontractors have lost 33 employees in the region since the start of the war, the Houston-based firm said.

Marines who had been stationed in the zone that includes the prison and other sections southwest of the capital have been replaced with Army troops, a senior U.S. Army official in Iraq said on Tuesday. U.S. commanders said that would free Marines to help pacify the embattled city of Fallujah.

The military said that Marines on patrol inspected the area from which the mortars were fired on the prison, but that the insurgents had fled. The complex is a frequent target of assaults by insurgents. In August, six prisoners were killed in a mortar attack on Abu Ghraib, once known as Hussein's most notorious prison.

In another development, seven judges and four prosecutors were named on Tuesday to try Hussein and senior officials of his government, said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization for formerly exiled political groups. The appointments were made by the judicial committee of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council. No date has yet been set to try Hussein.

The cutback in the Marines' operating area reflects the persistent instability in Fallujah, a city about 35 miles west of Baghdad where Sunni Muslim fighters have mounted an unexpectedly fierce resistance to Marines who entered the city to apprehend those responsible for the killing of four American security contractors whose bodies were mutilated. The tactical realignment was an indication of how thin the U.S. military has been stretched by the unexpected rise in insurgent attacks in recent weeks.

Marines will remain in Fallujah, but responsibility for the zone southwest of Baghdad has been taken over by several thousand soldiers from the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 1st Armored Division. That brigade was in Kuwait and on its way home when told recently to return to Iraq for an additional 120 days of duty. The sector includes a highway that is a major supply route for American troops.

The shift is part of a broader realignment of the 130,000 U.S. forces in Iraq aimed at responding to new security threats and the withdrawal of troops from other nations.

Marines were manning checkpoints in Fallujah on Tuesday, where Iraqi security officers and civilians who fled the city during intense fighting earlier this month lined up to return to their homes. On Monday, local leaders and U.S. officials agreed on a series of steps to reduce tensions in the city, including the return of residents, the resumption of police patrols and the handover of heavy weapons.