3 Americans killed, 2 wounded in Iraq

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer 51 minutes ago

Iraqi soldiers rushed to a mainly Sunni area of west Baghdad on Monday to free 23 Iraqis who had been taken hostage at a fake checkpoint there, a government spokesman said. A roadside bomb killed three Americans and wounded two. Fresh attacks against Sunnis in Hurriyah, a mixed neighborhood of northwestern Baghdad, have raised new fears of an organized campaign by Shiite militants to drive Sunnis from the area and strengthen militia control of the capital's north.

Witnesses say scores of Sunni families have been fleeing Hurriyah in recent weeks, and Sunni organizations claim that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi army and police have done little to stop the violence.

Iraqi commanders have denied the charge and said they are encouraging Sunnis to remain in Hurriyah and assuring them of their safety.

Mohammed al-Askari, Iraq's defense ministry spokesman, said security forces are doing everything they can to protect victims of sectarian violence, including families that are being driven from their homes in mixed neighborhoods of Shiites and Sunni Arabs.

He cited the example of Iraqi soldiers who rushed to Ghazaliyah, a primarily Sunni area of west Baghdad, on Monday morning to free 23 Iraqis who had been taken hostage at a fake checkpoint set up there.

"We killed one terrorist and arrested four others," al-Askari said at a news conference.

Iraqi commanders have denied the charge and said they are encouraging Sunnis to remain in Hurriyah and assuring them of their safety. Still, the authorities are clearly struggling to curb the violence.

Hurriyah was relatively calm Monday, two days after about 600 Iraqi soldiers were sent there in response to clashes in which police said at least two people were killed and two others wounded.

Asked about the area, al-Askari said: "We can't deny the presence of the outlaws in Hurriyah who have managed to intimidate residents and force some of them out of their houses. But Hurriyah isn't the only area where this is happening in Baghdad. It's going on in other neighborhoods, too, and all Iraqis are being targeted, not only one sect."

He said five Iraqi army companies are stationed in Hurriyah to protect all its residents.

"Some people are using places such as Hurriyah to support their false claim that the government and its security forces are incapable or unwilling to stop such violence," he said.

Three explosions struck Baghdad within a span of two hours on Monday, police said, after a roadside bomb in the capital killed three American soldiers and wounded two on a late-night combat patrol.

The soldiers were killed when the blast hit their military combat patrol in northern Baghdad, the U.S. command said. Insurgents often plant such explosives and hide nearby to set them off with hidden electrical cords or cell phone devices as coalition forces pass by in convoys.

The three deaths raised to 46 the number of American troops who have died this month. At least 2,934 members of the U.S. military have died since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

At 9 a.m. on Monday, a suicide car bomb hit an abandoned house being used by policemen as an outpost in Dora, southern Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding five, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

At 9:45 a.m., a roadside bomb exploded near Mustasiriyah University in east Baghdad, wounding seven civilians who were standing nearby, said police Lt. Ali Muhsin.

A parked car bomb detonated at 10:30 a.m. near al-Maamoun college in western Baghdad, killing one student and wounding two others and two policemen, a police officer said on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.

Last week, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged university professors and students to ignore a Sunni Arab insurgent group's warnings to avoid class, calling them "desperate attempts." The group had sent e-mails to students and posted signs at schools and mosques in Baghdad, saying students should stay away while it cleanses the campuses of Shiite death squads, according to a statement from al-Maliki's office.

But the attacks on college students and professors have continued.

On Sunday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani sharply criticized the bipartisan U.S. report calling for a new approach to the war, saying it contained dangerous recommendations that would undermine his country's sovereignty and were "an insult to the people of Iraq."

Talabani, a Kurd and one of the staunchest U.S. supporters within the Iraqi leadership, also said U.S. training of Iraq's army and police had gone "from failure to failure."

He criticized the recommendation by the Iraq Study Group calling for increasing the number of U.S. troops embedded with Iraqi units to train Iraq's forces from 3,000 to 4,000 currently to 10,000 to 20,000.

"It is not respecting the desire of the Iraqi people to control its army and to be able to rearm and train Iraqi forces under the leadership of the Iraqi government," he said during an interview Sunday with several reporters in his office in Baghdad.

The defense ministry spokesman played down the criticism of the report's recommendations to shift the U.S. military's focus from a combat role to more training.

"What has been mentioned regarding the military aspect, and I do not mean the whole report, is in line with the aspirations of the Iraqi security forces," al-Askari said, adding the goal was to improve the Iraqis' performance so they "can shoulder responsibility with effectiveness."