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Attack on U.S. facility kills soldiers in Iraq

Iraqis gather Monday at the scene of Sunday's twin car bomb attack that killed more than 60 people in Baghdad. On Monday, a string of car bombings and other attacks killed more than 40 civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Ernesto Londono and Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post
Iraqis gather Monday at the scene of Sunday's twin car bomb attack that killed more than 60 people in Baghdad. On Monday, a string of car bombings and other attacks killed more than 40 civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A U.S. military facility north of Baghdad was targeted Monday by suicide bombers and other armed men who killed at least two American soldiers and wounded 17 in an unusually brazen attack.

The facility, a former Iraqi police station in the city of Tarmiyah, came under attack shortly before dawn, according to a witness and the spokesman for the city’s joint coordination center, Capt. Muhammad Awad.

At least one suicide car bomber tore through the main gate and detonated explosives, destroying part of the building, which the U.S. military took over after Iraqi policemen abandoned it last summer because they were threatened by Sunni extremists who control that area.

According to witness accounts, the blasts ignited stored fuel, and a gunbattle commenced. Helicopters from the U.S. military base in nearby Taji rushed to Tarmiyah.

Minutes after wounded soldiers were airlifted, an improvised explosive device blew up about 500 yards away from the base, apparently targeting a U.S. convoy that included a fuel tank.

The size of the insurgent force was unclear, and it was not known whether the attackers suffered casualties.

U.S. military facilities in Iraq are frequently targeted from afar with rockets, mortars and sniper fire. But the coordinated close attack – which occurred as hundreds of American soldiers are being deployed to small, similarly vulnerable inner-city policing stations – appeared to be a shift in tactics.

The U.S. military released a brief statement, disclosing only the number of casualties. The statement noted one suicide car bombing.

Tarmiyah, a city of roughly 150,000 people, lies at one of the crucial entry points into Baghdad, and U.S. forces and Sunni insurgents affiliated with the group al-Qaida in Iraq have fought vigorously to control the area. Sunni extremists strengthened their grip on the city in recent months after the U.S. military moved a significant number of troops from the area to Baghdad.

“This is what happens when you clear and begin to hold, but leave before you finish the hold and build process,” a U.S. Army officer stationed nearby said Monday night, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We created a vacuum and al-Qaida filled it. We lost the people’s trust.”

The attack came less than a week after the Iraqi government launched an ambitious security plan that has made the capital the war’s focal point, raising the risk for troops stationed in outlying areas.

The U.S. military on Monday reported the deaths of seven other service members killed in recent days, including three soldiers who died Monday when a roadside bomb exploded while they were on patrol southwest of Baghdad. Also, three Marines and a soldier were killed in the western province of Anbar in fighting since Saturday, the military said.