Bombings kill 2 U.S. soldiers in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A rash of roadside bombings and shootings and a series of bitter demonstrations across Iraq on Sunday ended a relatively peaceful stretch since parliamentary elections a week and a half ago.

In the capital city, insurgents set an American tank ablaze, causing an undisclosed number of casualties, and elsewhere in the country explosions and assassinations killed Iraqi civilians and security forces.

The U.S. command reported that two American soldiers were killed by bombs Sunday. No other details were released, and it was not clear if they died in the same incident.

As of Sunday, at least 2,168 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The violence comes after more than a week of discontent and acrimony among some voters over the preliminary results of the Dec. 15 balloting for the first permanent national government since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion.

With those early tabulations showing a likely landslide victory for Shiite religious parties, losing slates and their supporters have cried foul. More than 1,000 fraud complaints have been filed with Iraqi election officials and waves of protests have been held in and around the capital.

"With these election results you're giving the resistance a reason to continue their resistance," said Nabeal Mohammad Younis, a professor of political science and a Sunni Arab nationalist.

At the heart of the dispute is the Sunnis' fundamental refusal to come to peace with their minority status — as shown by numerous demographic studies, the food-rationing card system and results of multiple elections — as well as the inability of secular Iraqis to connect with the country's majority of rural or recently urbanized pious Shiite poor.

U.S. officials have become resigned to the looming election results. Since the vote, both Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have met with interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Western officials have begun optimistically likening the ascendant Shiite religious political parties to the U.S.-backed Christian democratic parties that dominated German and Italian politics after World War II.

At the same time, angry protests about the vote took place in cities across Iraq on Sunday against a backdrop of violence after a relative lull of almost two weeks.

Early on Christmas Day, the U.S. tank hit a roadside bomb on a Baghdad highway, setting it ablaze, according to Iraqi officials. The U.S. military confirmed the report but would not release details on casualties. The U.S. military also announced that U.S. troops on Saturday had shot and killed three gunmen who attacked a patrol near Ad Duluiyah.

Assassinations and bombings continued throughout the day in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Among people shot in Baghdad was a bank official. In Tikrit, north of the capital, rebels targeted Gov. Hamad Hamoud, who escaped unscathed from a bombing on the road to Baiji.

Two Iraqi soldiers were killed in a mortar attack on an Iraqi army base in Mahmoudiya. Another mortar blast injured two people near the ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad. An Iraqi police patrol hit a roadside bomb near the capital's Shaab stadium. Three officers were wounded in the explosion. Iraqi soldiers also hit a roadside bomb near the city's heavily fortified Green Zone. Eleven people were injured.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, gunmen attacked a police checkpoint. Officers killed one of the insurgents but others fled and 10 minutes later, a bomb exploded nearby, wounding two. Later in the day, the convoy of a Kurdish official hit a car bomb, injuring four bodyguards and three civilians.

Also Sunday, two weeks after the discovery of 120 abused Iraqi prisoners, an American official said the U.S. military will not hand over jails or individual detainees to Iraqi authorities until they demonstrate higher standards of care.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said detention facilities in Iraq will be transferred over time to Iraqi officials but they must first show that the rights of detainees are safeguarded and that international law on the treatment of prisoners is being followed.

"A specific timeline for doing this is difficult to project at this stage with so many variables," said Johnson, a military spokesman. "The Iraqis are committed to doing this right and will not rush to failure. The transition will be based on meeting standards, not on a timeline."

Prisons have been one of the sore points between the Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs. U.S. officials are pushing to heal the rift as a way to weaken support for the Sunni-led insurgency.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said this month that at least 120 abused prisoners had been found inside two jails controlled by Shiite-run Iraqi Interior Ministry.

Sunni Arabs long have complained about abuse and torture by Interior Ministry security forces. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr contends torture allegations have been exaggerated. Johnson said that in preparation for the eventual handover of prisons, the U.S. Department of Justice is training Iraqi prison guards.

Compiled from The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times