BAGHDAD, 15 September 2006 — Car bombs and drive-by shootings yesterday killed at least 19 people — including two US soldiers — in a series of attacks around central Iraq, officials said.
Police reported the discovery around Baghdad of 20 men who had been tortured and killed, just one day after triple that number of bodies was found in and around the capital.
The US command said the first soldier died from wounds in the early morning hours after his unit came under attack by small arms, while the second was killed after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.
Military officials also reported yesterday that a US soldier died Wednesday from enemy fire in the northern city of Mosul.
The attacks came after a day that was especially bloody even by Baghdad’s standards, when car bombs, mortars and other attacks killed at least 39 people and wounded dozens. Police also uncovered the tortured bodies of 65 men dumped in and around the capital.
The top US military spokesman in Iraq yesterday said there was a spike in sectarian violence around Baghdad over the past 24 hours.
Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said the spike came from “murder-executions” and was probably the result of an increase in sectarian violence around Baghdad.
“There was a spike in violence in Baghdad over the past 24 hours from murder-executions,” Caldwell said. “Most of those are associated with sectarian violence, not all necessarily but a large portion.”
The violence persists despite a month-long security operation by thousands of US and Iraqi troops around Baghdad aimed mostly at stopping the killings carried out by Sunni and Shiite death squads.
A car bomb yesterday targeting a police patrol in a Shiite neighborhood of northern Baghdad missed, instead killing a civilian and wounding 13 others, police said.
In northeastern Baghdad, a motorcycle bomb exploded near a bakery, killing one person and wounding six others, said police 1st Lt. Bilal Ali.
Another car bomb then blew up bear the government’s passport office in central Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 17. The injured included four police officers, said police Lt. Bilal Ali.
The blast created a large crater in the street in front of the office, destroyed at least three cars, scattered debris and knocked down the walls of a neighboring house, according to AP Television News video.
Gunmen in Baqouba, 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, killed two police officers in a drive-by shooting. Another group of gunmen shot and killed three people in Ghazaniya, just north of Baqouba.
Police also found the body of a brigadier in the former Iraqi Army two days after he was kidnapped in Mahmoudiya, 19 miles south of Baghdad, said Cap. Udai Abdel-Rihda.
In northern Tal Afar, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police checkpoint killing one policeman, said Mosul police Col. Abdel-Karim Al-Jubouri.
Also yesterday, Caldwell said US military forces have arrested a senior Al-Qaeda figure and personal associate of the group’s new leader.
The man, who was not identified, was arrested Tuesday and led assassination, kidnapping and bomb-making cells in Baghdad, Caldwell said.
He also played a key role in Al-Qaeda’s activities in Fallujah before it was attacked by US troops in November 2004, Caldwell added.
According to Caldwell he was a “personal associate” of Abu Ayyoub Al-Masri, who took over Al-Qaeda in Iraq from Jordanian-born terrorist mastermind Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi after he was killed in a US airstrike north of Baghdad on June 7.
In a separate announcement, Iraqi authorities said that police killed Abu Jaafar Al-Liby, a senior member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, during an operation in Baghdad three days ago, Interior Ministry director of operations Brigadier Abdul-Karim Khalaf told the Associated Press.
