Terrorism & Security
posted October 5, 2006 at 11:30 a.m.

Roadside, car bomb attacks in Iraq at 'all-time high'

Attacks thwart US efforts to stem sectarian violence.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

The US military in Iraq says the number of improvised explosive device (IED) and car bomb attacks is at all all-time high.

The Washington Post reports that 13 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Monday, the highest three-day total since the start of the war. Most were killed in roadside bomb attacks. US officials also say the latest attacks – 24 US troops have been killed since last Saturday – are part of an upsurge in attacks against US troops.

US military officials said the surge in violence could be partly attributed to the increased exposure of American forces as they patrol the dangerous streets of Baghdad to try to quell reprisal killings between Shiites and Sunnis. The number of troops in the capital has been doubled since June to support the Iraqi government's new security plan, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, another military spokesman.

"When you go into bad neighborhoods, you'll have more attacks," said Lt. Col. James A. Gavrilis, a Special Forces officer and expert on the Iraqi insurgency. "If we have more people in one area, there will be an opportunity." He said enemy fighters "are reacting to an opportunity to attack."



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A spokesman for the Iraqi government said the increased number of attacks may also have been spurred by Al Qaeda in Iraq's recent call to "eliminate the infidels" during the current Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

In addition, US officials now say that it is extremely unlikely the new leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was killed two days ago in the western province of Anbar. Iraqi officials say they are still doing DNA tests on the bodies of the people killed in a raid, which occurred near Haditha, to determine if one of them was the Mr. Masri. Two Arab television stations had reported Wednesday that Masri was killed by US forces in the attack.

McClatchy reports that, in an effort to lower the number of attacks against US troops and Iraqis, an entire Iraq police brigade of about 700 officers has been pulled out of Baghdad because they seemed to be heavily involved in sectarian violence.

[US military spokesman Maj. Gen. William] Caldwell said Iraqi officials ordered the police brigade from Baghdad after 26 workers, most of them Sunni Muslims, were kidnapped Sunday from a meat-packing plant in a neighborhood the brigade was supposed to be protecting. The next day, uniformed gunmen driving what appeared to be government trucks kidnapped 14 people from a shopping district that specialized in computers ...

Caldwell said it was clear that officers from the unit, the 8th Brigade, 2nd National Police Division, had turned a blind eye to the death squads operating with their force. In some cases, he said, the brigade let killers move freely in the neighborhoods. The brigade also may have been slow intentionally to investigate reports of the killings and kidnappings. Some of the officers are now subjects of investigations, Caldwell said.

Finally, one of the highest ranking generals in the US has declined to back away from views attributed to him in a controversial new book by reporter and editor Bob Woodward. The Washington Post reports that Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the US commander for Europe, is quoted in "State of Denial" as saying that Iraq is a "debacle" and that "The [US] Joint Chiefs have been systematically emasculated by [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld."

Jones, who plans to retire in a few months, repeatedly declined to discuss the specific wording of his comments to Woodward about Iraq. "I'm not going to get into recollections of adjectives," he said. "I did talk about Iraq with a concern that Iraq deserves.

"I don't think that Iraq is a debacle," Jones told reporters after the meeting. "Iraq is a big problem."

General Jones said he did not considered himself to be part of the "revolt of the generals," a term used to describe recent negative comments about the Bush administration's actions in Iraq, made by retired US generals. He also said he had not discussed his comments with Mr. Rumsfeld, only saying that "We're a team, we're together, we have occasional family disagreements."

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