Attacks on Iraqi forces intensify; suicide bombing kills 22

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed sport-utility vehicle alongside a bus full of Iraqi national guardsmen yesterday, killing at least 22 soldiers.

The blast near Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, was one of several attacks on Iraqi security forces throughout the day that left at least 30 people dead.

U.S. and Iraqi officials called the violence part of a campaign to undercut Iraq's interim government and to scare Iraqis out of voting in the Jan. 30 national legislative election.

The past few weeks have brought a relentless run of deadly strikes on police, national guardsmen, election officials and candidates.

Less than an hour after the bus was attacked, four Iraqi policemen were shot to death near neighboring Samarra.

Gunmen also shot dead a deputy governor of the eastern Diyala province, the police chief of Jebala, police officers in Basra and Baghdad, and a Muslim cleric in Baghdad.

"We're going to see this terrible kind of attack take place even more as we get closer to the election," said Secretary of State Colin Powell, who appeared yesterday on television talk shows. "The people conducting these attacks don't want to see an election."

The bloodshed began early yesterday as Iraqi national guard soldiers set out for their posts on the bus. About 8 a.m., as the bus reached a traffic circle, a Toyota Land Cruiser veered into the path of the bus and exploded. The bomber may have had a passenger, U.S. officials said. In addition to the at least 22 guardsmen, the bus driver, a civilian, was slain.

Similar violence continued elsewhere. Later yesterday, an Iraqi national guard vehicle was damaged in an attack west of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Another suicide car bomber targeted a U.S. patrol in southwestern Baghdad, wounding two soldiers. Early today, a suicide car bomber targeted a police checkpoint on a road leading to the headquarters of Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party in Baghdad, killing at least two police officers and injuring at least 14 other Iraqis, police said.

Yesterday's attack near Balad came a day after an Iraqi group affiliated with al-Qaida released a video showing five members of Iraqi security forces being executed. In a statement, the group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, promised more of the same to those it sees as collaborators with foreign occupiers.

The U.S. military said the national guardsmen killed were members of a largely homegrown force traveling a familiar route. The trauma cast a grim air over the neighborhood. Shopkeepers closed their doors as family members claimed the bodies of the men from the wreckage.

But the mood turned angry as a crowd formed and went to the city's police headquarters. Residents — despite its location in the so-called Sunni Triangle, the town is overwhelmingly Shiite — shouted accusations toward a police force that is staffed largely by Sunnis from a nearby town. The residents accused police of allowing the bombers past a police checkpoint.

"They are from the Sunni Triangle and because we are Shia and live in peace they want to bring terrorism to this place," said Abu Saad, 60. "They are 100 percent involved in this."

The police chief denied the charges. "What the people said is not true," said Naseer Hussein, 36, from the police station, which he declined to leave.

He defended the inconsistent searchers at police checkpoints. "We know which cars we should search," Hussein said.

But Shiite residents remained unconvinced. Several insisted on seeing the attack through the prism of the Jan. 30 election, which Shiites are expected to dominate because they make up 60 percent of Iraq's population. Sunni Arabs and Kurds each make up about 20 percent.

The election is seen as an opportunity for Shiites eager at the prospect of gaining power proportionate to their numbers after years of being dominated by the Sunni government of Saddam Hussein.

"This operation, they did it to stop the elections," said Haider Abdulzahra Mehdi, 32, standing beside the body of his brother, Abbas, in a Shiite community center in Balad. "All the people of Balad will be sure to go through with this election on time no matter what happens."

In focusing their attacks on Iraqi soldiers and police, the insurgents have made a tactical and strategic move. Iraqi police and national guard members are much easier targets than Americans. They drive around in pickups and sport-utility vehicles equipped with a token slab of armor, if that. They lack the firepower of the Americans. And what weaponry they have they do not use as well.

In the longer term, the killings are a powerful form of intimidation. They make Iraqis rethink working with the interim government or the Americans.

The daily bloodshed also chips away at the credibility of the government: If the Iraqi police and soldiers cannot protect themselves, how can Iraqis count on them to protect average citizens?

That is a particularly crucial question with elections less than a month away.

Iraqi officials said they expect attacks to intensify. "It's a major problem," said Sabah Kadhim Ali, spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior. "We don't have enough forces, we don't have enough equipment and we have a very determined opponent."

Material from The Associated Press, Washington Post, Reuters and Chicago Tribune is included in this report.