4 Americans Killed In Bombings In The Baghdad Area

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
August 8, 2007
Pg. 8
By Damien Cave
BAGHDAD, Aug. 7 — Roadside bombs killed four American soldiers in and around the capital, the United States military said Tuesday, and a proposal for an expanded United Nations role in Iraq moved closer to a vote.
Three of the Americans were killed Saturday in an attack involving several explosions on a road south of Baghdad. Witnesses said the blasts wounded several other soldiers and destroyed at least one armored vehicle.
The military said a fourth American soldier died Monday, and one was wounded, when an armor-piercing bomb exploded near their vehicle in western Baghdad.
The deaths set the pace for a higher military toll in August than in July, when 80 American service members died from hostile and nonhostile causes, said Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks military deaths. July’s was the lowest monthly toll since November.
British military officials announced that a British soldier had died from wounds sustained Monday during a firefight in the southern city of Basra.
Also on Tuesday, the United States and Britain introduced a resolution that would extend the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq for another 12 months and broaden its efforts to promote political dialogue and national reconciliation.
The resolution, expected to be approved Thursday by the Security Council, would also raise United Nations staff levels in Iraq by about a third. Since it was established in 2003, the mission has focused primarily on electoral assistance and human rights monitoring.
In Baghdad on Monday, Iraqi authorities announced a curfew from Wednesday to Saturday to coincide with a major Shiite pilgrimage here. This week’s pilgrimage to the northwestern Baghdad shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim — one of Shiite Islam’s principal figures, known as the Seventh Imam — has begun and will peak Thursday, the anniversary of his death in A.D. 799.
Iraqi officials said they feared the steady stream of pilgrims filling the streets would make a tempting target for Sunni Arab insurgents. In 2005, roughly 1,000 people died during the pilgrimage in a stampede touched off by rumors of a suicide bomber on a Baghdad bridge.
Brig. Gen. Qasim al-Moussawi, an Iraqi military spokesman, said that more troops had already been deployed to checkpoints, and that all vehicles would be banned from 10 p.m. Wednesday until 5 a.m. Saturday.
Shiites said they expected tens of thousands of people to visit the shrine despite the risk of violence.
Murtadha Hamil, an engineer from eastern Baghdad, said he would walk to the shrine in Kadhimiya out of dedication to his faith. “It’s a kind of rejection and challenge from the Shiite people for their enemies,” he said. “The determination of Shiites has grown with the threats and challenges.”
Iraq’s sectarian political divide showed no signs of narrowing on Tuesday. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at five ministers loyal to Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister, who are boycotting the Shiite-led government, and at Iraq’s main Sunni group, which has also pulled out of the government. The prime minister, in an interview with an Iranian news channel, Al Alam, said their decision to leave showed a “lack of responsibility.”
“The opposition, instead of boycotting and quitting the government, must express their views,” he said. “But by boycotting the Parliament or the government, they are showing in fact their lack of merit and sincerity.”
The groups said they acted after Mr. Maliki had failed to respond to calls for political reforms that they said would reduce the sectarianism and inefficiency of Iraq’s government.
Mr. Maliki flew to Turkey late on Tuesday to begin talks with officials there about a Kurdish separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. The group is believed to be responsible for attacks on Turkish solders and on outposts in eastern Turkey from sanctuaries in Iraq.
In Ankara, Iraqi and Turkish officials signed a memorandum of understanding that included a rough framework for combating terrorism, but did not go into specifics. They agreed to continue lower-level discussions, which are expected to address measures such as extraditing P.K.K. leaders and cutting off financial and logistic support to the group and blocking its broadcasts.
“There is understanding between us to struggle against terrorist organizations,” Mr. Maliki said on Turkish television. “This organization and those like it cannot and will not be allowed to exist on Iraqi land.” Mr. Maliki said the agreement still had to be approved by Iraq’s Parliament.
Authorities in Baghdad said they found 16 bodies on Tuesday. In Saydia, a mixed area and one of the capital’s most violent neighborhoods, five people died in a gun battle that started when two men in a car opened fire on a family in another vehicle, hospital officials said.
A security official in Baquba, in Diyala Province, said two unidentified bodies had been found in the city with gunshot wounds to the head. In a neighborhood on Baquba’s northern outskirts, several explosions from mortar rounds wounded at least three children.
Reporting was contributed by Daniel B. Schneider from the United Nations, Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul and Qais Mizher and Al Fahim from Baghdad.
 
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