Bomber targets Iraqi official

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A suicide car bomber killed four people and slightly wounded a deputy interior minister Saturday in the second such attack on a senior Iraqi official in Baghdad this week – both claimed by the same al Qaeda-linked group.

A statement by the group posted on the Internet said the bomber Saturday came from Syria, bolstering long-standing U.S. claims that foreign fighters are involved in insurgent attacks in Iraq.

Also Saturday, a senior military official said troops found “terrorist manuals” at the site where a U.S. airstrike killed 40 people on Wednesday. They also found machines for making fake IDs, battery packs rigged for homemade bombs and nothing to indicate a wedding party as some witnesses have claimed.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said evidence at the location about 15 miles from the Syrian border suggested that there had been a secret meeting of anti-occupation forces.

And fighting flared anew in the Shiite holy city of Najaf and nearby Kufa between American soldiers and the Shiite militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, with bursts of heavy mortar and machine gun fire heard about midnight. A live report on Al-Jazeera television from its correspondent in Najaf was punctuated by strong explosions near a downtown hotel.

More than 20 tanks and hundreds of soldiers moved into Kufa on Saturday night after pounding the city with artillery, said CNN, which has a reporter accompanying the troops. It said the troops killed 16 suspected insurgents and seized a large cache of weapons at a mosque.

A U.S. patrol moved into the center of another Shiite holy city, Karbala, late Saturday but found no sign of al-Sadr’s militia. Residents told the soldiers that the militiamen fled the area the night before.

Saturday’s suicide blast outside the home of Abdul-Jabbar Youssef al-Sheikhli, the deputy interior minister in charge of security, hurled two cars onto the front lawn of his house. Police fired warning shots to disperse distraught bystanders who scuffled with them after the attack.

Al-Sheikhli was injured in the forehead and right arm, said Hassan Hadi, a Health Ministry official.

Bodyguards fired on the bomber’s car as it approached, Kimmitt said. Three bodyguards and a woman were killed as well as the bomber, he said. Earlier, Iraqi authorities said four police died.

Al-Sheikhli belongs to the Shiite Muslim Dawa party, which lost a prominent member in another fatal car bombing Monday. The president of the Iraqi Governing Council, Dawa member Izzadine Saleem, was killed along with at least six other people near the headquarters of the U.S.-run coalition in the capital.

The Monotheism and Jihad Group, which claimed responsibility for Saleem’s death, said it carried out the attack Saturday as a warning to the United States and its allies.

“They will not be safe from the hand of God’s retaliation, then the mujahedeen’s, and that they should be ready,” said the statement, posted on an Islamic Web site.

It said “martyr” Ahmed el-Shami Aby Abdel Rahman, from Qamishli, Syria, “drove a car bomb to take (al-Sheikhli) to hell.”

The group’s leader is believed to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian wanted by the United States for organizing al Qaeda operations in Iraq and suspected of beheading American civilian Nicholas Berg.

In Najaf, south of Baghdad, fighting broke out Saturday between U.S. forces and al-Sadr’s militia near the city’s police directorate and the governor’s office. At least 10 people were injured in the Saturday clashes, which erupted again about midnight, according to Radhi Kadhim, a nurse at al-Hakim Hospital.

Residents of Najaf reached by telephone said they could hear the sounds of automatic weapons fire and explosives late Saturday coming from Najaf’s twin city, Kufa, but efforts to reach anyone there were unsuccessful.

Americans killed

Also Saturday, the military said a U.S. soldier was killed and three others from the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division were wounded in an attack on their vehicle south of Baghdad, and a Marine died in a non-hostile incident.

It said the soldiers’ vehicle was “ambushed by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device” in Mahmoudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad. The statement did not say when the attack occurred.

The military said the Marine, assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, died Friday near Camp Fallujah, west of Baghdad, while “conducting security and stability operations.”

Kimmitt said efforts to end fighting in Sadr City, an al-Sadr stronghold in Baghdad, had broken down because coalition forces continue to be attacked. Troops had temporarily suspended patrols to give tribal leaders time to negotiate with the militia.

Meanwhile, a military official said the U.S. Army has rejected an attorney’s request to move the court-martial of a soldier accused of abusing prisoners out of Iraq.

Gary Myers, an attorney for Staff Sgt. Ivan “Chip” Frederick II, said in a request rejected May 14 that moving the trial to Europe or the United States was the only way to guarantee the safety of witnesses and lawyers, the New York Times reported Saturday.

Frederick is one of seven military police accused of abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. His trial will be in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a heavily fortified area that houses coalition headquarters.

‘High-risk meeting’

Kimmitt left open the possibility that there may have been some kind of celebration at the site where a U.S. strike killed 40 people.

“Bad people have parties, too,” he said.

The incident has stirred further anger among Iraqis already bitter about the American occupation, and U.S. military officials have moved swiftly to counter the allegation that they may have slaughtered innocent people.

A videotape emerged late Wednesday allegedly showing the bodies of the dead, including children. Purported witnesses said the airstrike hit a wedding party.

On Thursday, a funeral was held in Baghdad for two of the victims, members of a band, including a popular local singer. A man claiming he was the only surviving member of the band said they had been hired for a wedding at the location and that the party lasted three days.

At a briefing Saturday, Kimmitt showed photographs of the interior of the targeted building that showed stacks of bedding – more than 300 sets – a table used for medical examinations, and medical supplies, including syringes with residue suspected of being cocaine. There were assorted firearms and a large number of prepacked sets of clothing.

“The building seemed to be somewhat of a dormitory,” Kimmitt said.

He said the setup appeared to be a way station where foreign fighters slipping through the border could get bogus identification documents and clothes that would help them blend in with the Iraqi population.

Some of the dead had in their pockets foreign telephone numbers, including some from Afghanistan and Sudan, Kimmitt said.

About 35 men and six women were killed in the pre-dawn strike. There were no children among the dead, Kimmitt said.

None of the bodies had any identification, he said.

“No ID cards. No wallets. No pictures. They had watches, and that was about the only way you could identify one person from another,” he said.

“We feel that was an indication that this was a high-risk meeting of high-level anti-coalition forces,” Kimmitt said.

“There was no evidence of a wedding,” Kimmitt said. “There was no decorations, no music instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration. No gifts.”

Disputing claims that there was a wedding tent, Kimmitt said no tent was present.

However, he said there were “inconsistencies,” which he did not specify except to reference the videotape.

“We’re continuing to explore all possibilities of what happened on the ground,” he said.