At Least 3 Killed in Green Zone Barrage

A young boy watches as U.S. and Iraqi soldiers detain a man suspected of providing false documents for al-Qaida during a pre-dawn raid in Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, July 9, 2007. U.S. and Iraqi forces detained nine suspected al-Qaida members. (AP Photo) (AP)

A week later, an explosion rattled windows in the U.S. Embassy while Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting. Witnesses said a mortar or rocket appeared to have been fired from the mostly Shiite areas on the east side of the Tigris.

And on May 19, a blast hit the British Embassy compound just before British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived for a farewell visit as British prime minister. One person was injured.

Attacks against the Green Zone have continued despite the Baghdad security crackdown, which began in mid-February. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top military commander Gen. David Petraeus are due to give a preliminary report to Congress this week outlining progress in efforts to improve security here.

The report is due as opposition to the U.S. mission is increasing in Congress, even among President Bush's own party.

Attacks against the zone have also renewed concern about security at the new U.S. Embassy, which is due to open this year within the protected area. The embassy will be the world's largest and most expensive foreign mission, though it may not be large enough or secure enough to cope with the chaos in Iraq.

The sharp increase in mortar attacks prompted the U.S. Embassy on May 3 to issue a strict new order telling all employees to wear flak vests and helmets while in unprotected buildings or whenever they are outside.

Attacks on the Green Zone are nothing new: They have occurred from time to time since the first months of the U.S. presence in Iraq. Often, the rounds landed in open fields _ part of a system of parks that Saddam Hussein built when the area served as the headquarters of his regime.

One of the earliest attacks was directed at the Rasheed Hotel, when Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying. He escaped injury but an American soldier was killed and 15 people were wounded.

Two Americans were killed in a rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy on the eve of the Jan. 30, 2005 elections.

But the fact that extremists are able to mount such attacks despite the American troop surge has been especially disturbing.

In one of the most startling breaches of Baghdad's ever-tightening security, on April 12, a suicide bomber somehow eluded detection at successive checkpoints and blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria, killing a lawmaker and wounding 22 other people.

Meanwhile Tuesday, at least 46 violent deaths were reported around the country. In Baghdad, police reported finding the bodies of 23 people tortured and slain, presumably by Shiite and Sunni death squads which still operate despite the security crackdown. Sixteen of their bodies were found on the west side of the city, which is more religiously mixed.

The British military said Tuesday warplanes struck the day before in the southern town of al-Majar al-Kabir near the Iranian border, killing three militants suspected of smuggling weapons into Iraq.

Iraqi police officials said a British helicopter strike killed the brother and two guards of radical Shiite cleric Sheik Abu Jamal al-Fartousi, whom the British military accused of being a leader in Iran's elite Quds Force suspected of arming militants.

The U.S. military said American special operations forces in a raid Sunday captured 12 militants in Baghdad who had broken away from the Mahdi Army and had carried out attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.