U.S. toll climbs after day of attacks in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The American military body count in Thursday's violence rose to 11, with officials adding four more deaths Friday to those killed in insurgent attacks in what has been one of the bloodiest stretches since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began.

Meanwhile, tensions remained high across Iraq on Friday as security tightened around mosques on the Muslim day of worship amid fraying relations between Iraq's Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs.

But a measure of calm returned to the streets, where at least 120 Iraqis were killed in suicide bombings Thursday, as clerics delivered sermons tinged with notes of defiance as well as calls for calm.

The massive suicide bombings took place outside a Shiite Muslim shrine in Karbala, south of Baghdad, and a police recruiting center in Ramadi, a Sunni-dominated city. At least 200 Iraqi civilians, police and soldiers as well as American military personnel were killed during a three-day period of mayhem ending Friday.

The 11 Marines and soldiers died in five separate incidents. A roadside bomb south of Baghdad resulted in the deaths of five U.S. soldiers on patrol. Two others were killed when their patrol struck a roadside bomb in Baghdad. Two Marines were killed by small-arms fire during separate combat operations in Fallujah, U.S. officials announced. A Marine and a soldier were killed in Ramadi when the suicide bomber struck the police recruiting center.

As of Friday, at least 2,194 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 uptick in violence comes as Iraq's factions try to put together a new four-year government following Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.

Indeed, observers detected new hints of chauvinism and anger among the Shiite clergy who have been key elements to maintaining relative calm among the country's majority and averting an all-out civil war.

"Today, we are much stronger than we were yesterday," said Sadr-din Qaabanchi, Friday prayer leader in the shrine of Imam Ali in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where security was ramped up following the bombings Thursday.

"We have a state, constitution, civil establishments," he said. "The terrorism only increases our persistence and commitment to this path."

Shiite abuses alleged

The country's majority Shiites have emerged as the dominant force in post-invasion Iraq after centuries at the bottom of Iraq's social and political hierarchy. In grappling with an insurgency led by Sunni Arab nationalists, who held sway during the regime of Saddam Hussein, and foreign Islamic extremists, they've allegedly begun allowing the country's police force to use death squads and torture, according to human-rights organizations and U.S. officials.

U.S. military commanders and embassy officials say the current police force, heavy with Shiite militiamen, destabilizes the country. They have vowed to reform it this year by pushing for the removal of Interior Minister Bayan Jabr and turning the police into a force that draws Sunni Arab recruits as well as Shiites and Kurds. But Shiite leaders used the recent bombings, including the attack on the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala and a bombing a day earlier at a Shiite funeral in Muqdadiyah, to deflect criticism of the government's security policies.

"The Multi-National Forces and the American embassy adopted attitudes that encourage terrorists to use terrorism," Jalaledin Saqir, a Shiite cleric and parliamentarian who leads prayers at the Bratha mosque in Baghdad, told worshippers.

Echoing statements made by his political chief, Abdel Aziz Hakim, Saqir accused the U.S. of "creating tension in the political atmosphere by pretending to be weeping for human rights and supporting the claim that the interior minister is a sectarian minister."

Thousands rally

In Baghdad's mostly Shiite Sadr City and Kadhimiya districts, thousands of supporters of the main Shiite political party rallied against the insurgent strikes and what they called U.S. efforts to back Sunni Arab militants.

More than 5,000 Sadr City demonstrators chanted slogans in favor of the Interior Ministry and against U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and moderate Sunni Arab leaders. But they reserved most of their ire for hard-liners such as Saleh al-Mutlaq, the head of the Sunni Arab National Dialogue Front.

"We're going to crush Saleh al-Mutlaq with our slippers," they chanted. It is an insult in Arab culture to touch someone with shoes, which are considered unclean.

Al-Mutlaq denounced what he called "irresponsible statements" and condemned terrorist attacks.

"No government post is worth a single drop of Iraqi blood," he said. "Our decision to join the political process means that we reject terrorism."

The demonstration was organized by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq — one of two religious parties that makes up the governing Alliance.

Two bombers strike

Security cordons were tightened Friday at Sunni Arab mosques as well as Shiite ones in Baghdad. Two mortar rounds fell on a Sunni Arab mosque in Baghdad, but there were no injuries. Iraqi national guardsmen were stationed around Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque, among the most important Sunni places of worship and study in Iraq. The few worshippers who attended prayers Friday listened somberly as prayer leader Ahmad Taha condemned the terrorists and the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari for raising sectarian tensions.

Also Friday, a suicide bomber struck a police patrol in the capital, killing one officer and injuring four. Another suicide bomber struck a police checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul injuring 15, police said.

Los Angeles Times reporters Caesar Ahmad, Raheem Salman and Saad Fakhrildeen contributed to this report, which was supplemented by The Associated Press.