Iraq Parliament in Session of 'Defiance'

Image from television via AP Television News shows a man and a woman leaving the area through thick dust following an explosion in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria within the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. Thursday April 12, 2007. A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the cafeteria Thursday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone. Television footage showed scenes of pandemonium inside the building at the moment of the attack. A man being interviewed on Alhurra television ducked for cover, as a hallway filled with smoke. People can be heard screaming out one another's names. One man was slumped over, motionless, covered in dust. (AP Photo/AP Television News, pool ) (AP)

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's parliament met in an extraordinary session of "defiance" Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, and declared it would not bow to terrorism. A bouquet of red roses and a white lily sat in the place of Mohammed Awad, the lawmaker killed in the parliament dining hall suicide bombing claimed by al-Qaida.

Parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani opened the session and asked lawmakers to recite verses from the Quran in honor of Awad, whom he called a "hero."

The unprecedented Friday meeting was called to send "a clear message to all the terrorists and all those who dare try to stop this (political) process, that we will sacrifice in order for it to continue," said al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Muslim.

"We feel today that we are stronger than yesterday," he said. "The parliament, government and the people are all the same _ they are all in the same ship which, if it sinks, will make everyone sink."

An al-Qaida-led amalgam of Sunni insurgents claimed one of its "knights" carried out Thursday's suicide bombing in Baghdad's Green Zone and warned the "monkeys in parliament" to brace for more attacks. The U.S. military revised the death toll sharply downward, saying one civilian was killed. Late into Thursday the military had said eight people were killed and 23 wounded.

While the attack was widely believed to have been an al-Qaida mission, investigators said Friday they were focusing on security guards inside and outside the parliament building. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

Iraq's Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, which runs the police and national paramilitary force, on Friday took over security for parliament.

The U.S. military on Friday announced that three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi translators were killed in two attacks south of Baghdad. Eight soldiers were wounded.

In the worst of the two incidents, two soldiers were killed and seven wounded in an attack on their base south of the capital Thursday. The two Iraqi interpreters also died. The military statement said U.S. forces dispatched a quick reaction force and attack helicopters to relieve the unit.

In an attack Friday, the military said, one soldier was killed and one wounded in a roadside bombing, also south of Baghdad.

Twenty people were killed or found dead across Iraq on Friday, with just five victims of sectarian assassinations found in the capital. That was the second lowest daily toll since the security operation began in Baghdad on Feb. 14.

But Thursday's bombing in the heart of Baghdad's most secure region, coupled with the stunning destruction of one of Baghdad's Tigris River bridges, was a heavy blow to the Bush administration's plan to put an additional 30,000 American forces in Iraq by summer.