BAGHDAD, 24 April 2005 — In an escalation of violence, rebels attacked an Iraqi National Guard convoy and killed nine troops in one of at least five car bombings yesterday as Iraq’s political leaders struggled to form a new government.

Two weeks of increased trouble have put pressure on Iraq’s new leaders to resolve their differences and make good on promises to improve security after the Jan. 30 election.

The bomb struck a National Guard convoy at Abu Ghraib, home to the US prison, some 20 km west of Baghdad, and also wounded 20 guardsmen, police said.

An attack on a US patrol in western Baghdad killed two civilians, police said. The US military said three American soldiers and seven Iraqi civilians were wounded.

A US vehicle and two Iraqi vehicles were destroyed, and the blast knocked down power lines, they said.

One Iraqi National Guardsman was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb at Yusufiya, about 75 km south of Baghdad, police said.

And two suicide car bombers wounded seven Iraqis on a road 10 km south of the southern city of Basra, police said.

The US military said it had detained six Iraqi men in connection with the shooting down of a commercial helicopter in which 11 people were killed, including six Americans.

The men were detained following tip-offs from Iraqi civilians. It was not clear where in Iraq they were found.

The Russian-built Mi-8 helicopter was shot down on Thursday as it flew over a deserted region north of Baghdad. Video footage shot by insurgents and broadcast by Arabic satellite channels showed it was hit by some sort of rocket or missile.

The three-man Bulgarian crew was killed as were six American private security contractors and two Fijian guards.

A television cameraman working for the Associated Press news organization was shot and killed and a colleague wounded in Mosul, about 390 km north of Baghdad, the agency said. They were hit during a gunfight between insurgents and security forces, including US troops, that erupted after a car bomb explosion.

Saleh Ibrahim suffered three bullet wounds to the chest and died shortly after arriving at hospital, the AP said. Mohamed Ibrahim, a photographer, was treated for shrapnel wounds to the back of the head.

Political sources said intense talks were focusing on drawing the minority Sunnis, Iraq’s dominant sect under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, into the government with majority Shiites and Kurds.

“It needs to truly be a government of national unity, with all parties involved, not just a Shiite-Kurdish government,” one source close to the talks said.

Meetings were going on for up to 10 hours a day to break the impasse, the source added.

— With input from agencies