Sunnis, Shiites Split on U.S. Troop Bill

A member of Iraqi security forces man his checkpoint in central in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, April 27, 2007. The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate adopted House-passed legislation calling for U.S. troops to begin leaving Iraq by Oct. 1. U.S. President George W. Bush pledged to veto the measure, and neither body passed the measure with enough votes to override a veto. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) (Khalid Mohammed - AP)

Wisam Abdullah, 28, a Sunni restaurant owner in Basra, said: "All Iraqis want the U.S. Army to leave our country."

But in Basra, where Shiite militias are competing for influence as British troops prepare to begin leaving the area, even Abdullah seemed worried.

"I do not think that now is the best time to ask for the U.S. withdrawal," he said.

As Iraqis pondered their future, the U.S. military said three U.S. Marines were killed Thursday in fighting in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. The deaths raised to at least 3,337 members of the U.S. military who have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

At least 19 people were reported killed or found dead by police, including 16 bullet-riddled bodies _ seven in Baghdad, six pulled from the Tigris River south of the capital, and three in the northeastern city of Baqouba.

A roadside bomb killed a civilian after missing its target of a police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, and a human rights activist was shot to death in Kirkuk, police said. A mortar attack also killed a Shiite man and wounded another in Nahrawan, east of Baghdad.

Authorities have sought to curb the violence on Fridays by imposing a weekly four-hour driving ban in Baghdad to protect prayer services on the Islamic day of rest.

U.S.-led forces also staged a series of raids, capturing nine suspected insurgents who were linked to al-Qaida in Iraq _ five in the northern city of Mosul, one near Salman Pak southeast of Baghdad, one in the capital and two near Ramadi.

Four suspected members of a cell believed to be smuggling sophisticated roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran also were captured during a raid in the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, the military said.

In January, U.S. officials said at least 170 U.S. soldiers had been killed by the armor-piercing EFPs since 2004.

The cell also was allegedly smuggling militants from Iraqi to Iran for terrorist training and has ties to a kidnapping network that conducts attacks within Iraq, the military said.

The Pentagon announced separately the capture of Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a Mosul native and one of al-Qaida's most senior and most experienced operatives. He was caught while trying to return to Iraq and was transferred to Defense Department custody this week from the CIA, the Pentagon said.

The U.S. military also released more details about a U.S. officer accused of aiding the enemy for allegedly providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees while he commanded an MP detachment at the jail that held Saddam Hussein, saying he is a full-time reservist from Prince George, Va.

Army Lt. Col. William H. Steele, 51, faces nine charges in all, including fraternizing with a prisoner's daughter, storing and marking classified material, maintaining an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter, and possessing pornographic videos.

The rare charges were among the most serious levied against a senior American officer in Iraq, but were the latest in a series of embarrassments for the U.S. military detention system here.

Steele was detained in March and is being held in Kuwait pending an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing.