BAGHDAD, 18 June 2006 — Bomb and mortar attacks killed at least 31 people in and near Baghdad yesterday in violence that showed no sign of easing despite a security crackdown against Al-Qaeda in the Iraqi capital. The violence followed a vow by Al-Qaeda’s new leader in Iraq to avenge the death of his predecessor Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US airstrike on June 7.
In the deadliest attack, a car bomb targeting Iraqi army and police killed 11 people. Reuters Television footage showed the blackened remains of at least six burned out cars. A charred body was taken on a stretcher to an ambulance.
US military helicopters and divers searched for two US soldiers missing after an attack on Friday in which one American soldier was killed in the insurgent bastion of Yusufiya in the “Triangle of Death” south of Baghdad. “We are using all available assets, coalition and Iraqi — ground, air and water — to locate and determine the duty status of our soldiers,” Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for the US military in Iraq, said in a statement.
He said teams of divers were working the canals and Euphrates River near Yusufiya, a rural area which has seen fierce fighting between US forces and Al-Qaeda militants. More than 2,500 US soldiers have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.
