Iraq attacks intensify

Saturday's attack is the latest example of the growing chaos in Iraq, only weeks away from elections slated for 30 January.

The US commander in Iraq, General John Abizaid, acknowledged that the country's home-grown forces aren't yet up to the task of protecting the elections, making a planned US troop increase necessary.

More than 40 Iraqis have been killed in the last two days alone.

Meanwhile, the deadly campaign against US troops continued.

Two US soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in Baghdad and north of the capital on Saturday, while the US military announced the death of two more soldiers in car bombings of their post near the Jordanian border the day before.

With the country still so unstable and elections eight weeks away, the US military now plans to increase its troop strength from 138,000 to about 150,000 by mid-January - slightly more than during the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein - in an attempt to keep order during the vote.

In candid remarks, General Abizaid admitted the troop increase wasn't exactly what Washington had envisaged.

"It had been our hope that we would be able to have a combination of increases that mainly were Iraqi troop increases," Abizaid, head of US Central Command, said.

"And while the Iraqi troops are larger in number than they used to be, those forces have to be seasoned more, trained more. So, it's necessary to bring more American forces."

'Constantly improving'

Speaking to reporters at a regional security conference in Bahrain, Abizaid declined to speculate on when the Iraqi forces would be ready or say how many they now number. But he said they were, "constantly improving".

Officials had hoped that the recent US-led attack of Falluja would put Iraqi fighters on the defensive. But the latest attacks demonstrate that they are still highly capable of hitting back where they choose.

Saturday's car bombs in Baghdad went off nearly simultaneously at about 9.30am by a police station across the street from a checkpoint leading to the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the offices of Iraq's interim government and several foreign missions.

Bursts of automatic fire followed the thunderous detonation, which shook windows several hundred yards away in buildings on the opposite side of the Tigris River.

Police targeted

Health officials said the bodies of seven people killed by the blast and 59 wounded were brought to two Baghdad hospitals. Officials said most of the victims were police officers, but the identities of all the dead were not yet known.

Adil Hassan, a policeman who survived the attack with head injuries, said at a hospital crammed with victims that a "suicide car bomber sped into our place (the police station) ... and then there was an explosion".

The attack came a day after a highly coordinated assault on a police station west of Baghdad in which fighters killed 16 police, looted the station's armoury and freed dozens of prisoners.

Militiamen attacked

In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomber exploded his vehicle alongside a bus carrying pro-government Kurdish militiamen, killing at least 17 and wounding 40, an official said.

The militiamen were being brought in from the mainly Kurdish city of Arbil to Mosul, where US and Iraqi forces have been battling fighters who staged an uprising last month, attacking police stations and government offices.

In an eastern district of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed a US soldier and wounded five others on Saturday, the military said. Another bomb near the town of Ghalabiya, about 10km west of Baquba, north of Baghdad, hit a truck in a US military convoy, killing a soldier and wounding another, Master Sergeant Robert Powell said.

Borders closed

With regard to Friday's car bombings of a US forward operating base near Iraq's border with Jordan, the US command said on Saturday two US soldiers died in the attack.

Iraq closed its Karama border crossing into Jordan until further notice, Jordanian officials said.

The deaths - along with those of two US soldiers killed in roadside bombs in Baghdad and Kirkuk on Friday - brought the number of US military members killed since the war began in March 2003 to at least 1269, according to an Associated Press count.

Also on Saturday, a hospital official said the bodies of nine slain men wearing Iraqi National Guards uniforms were found in northwestern Iraq. The bodies were found on Friday in Tal Afar.

There have been at least 75 bodies discovered in and around that town and Mosul, about 50km to the east, since 18 November.

In yet another incident, police in the northern city of Samarra came under attack on Saturday. Mortars were fired at a police station after midnight, wounding two officers. Two policemen were injured in another attack at about 10am (0700 GMT), according to police Major Saadun Ahmad Matrud.
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Saturday's car bombs in Baghdad went off nearly simultaneously at about9 : 30a.m. by a police station across the street from a checkpoint leading to the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Health officials said the bodies of seven people killed by the blast and 59 wounded were brought to two Baghdad hospitals. Most of the victims were police officers the AP reported.

In an eastern district of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed an American soldier and wounded five others Saturday, the military said. Another bomb near the town of Ghalabiyah, west of the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, hit a truck in a U.S. military convoy, killing a soldier and wounding another, Master Sgt. Robert Powell said.

A suicide car bomb hit an American forward operating base near Iraq's border with Jordan on Friday, killing two U.S. service members, the U.S. command said Saturday.

Iraq closed its Karameh border crossing into Jordan until further notice, Jordanian officials said Saturday.

Police in the northern city of Samarra also came under attack Saturday. Mortars were fired at a station after midnight, injuring two officers. Gunmen injured two policemen in another attack at about 10 a.m., according to police Maj. Sadoon Ahmed Matroud.

Elsewhere, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle alongside a bus carrying Kurdish peshmerga militiamen in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least seven and injuring eight, a Kurdish official said.

The blast went off in the afternoon in an eastern neighborhood of Mosul as the bus carrying militiamen loyal to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan were arriving from Irbil province, said Saadi Ahmed, a PUK official, according to the AP.

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At least 14 people have been killed in suicide car bomb attacks on police in Baghdad and Kurdish militiamen in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Two cars exploded at the entry of Baghdad's Green Zone at around 0930 (0630GMT), killing seven people.

More than 50 people were wounded in the attack.

Later, a suicide bomber blew up his car beside a bus carrying the Kurdish militiamen linked to one of the two main Kurdish parties in north Iraq.

In other developments:

* Two US soldiers are killed in a roadside bomb attack in east Baghdad on Saturday and five are injured

* A US soldier dies and another is wounded when a bomb targets a US convoy near the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad

* Another two US soldiers were killed and five wounded in a car bombing at the Trebil border crossing between Jordan and Iraq on Friday

* The British Black Watch battle group pull out of Camp Dogwood near Baghdad and return to their base in Basra in the south of Iraq

* Police in Germany arrest a Lebanese citizen in connection with an alleged plot to attack the Iraqi Interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, during a visit to Berlin this week.

Police attacked

Witnesses said they saw two vehicle being driven towards the Salhiyah police station in Baghdad on Saturday morning.

"I was on guard duty in front of the building," said 27-year-old policeman Adel Abdel Sadek, whose face was covered in cuts.

"I remember that a car wanted to get into the police station and we refused, and then the explosion happened," he was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

Even by Baghdad standards, the blasts were very powerful, the BBC's Peter Greste reports from the city. They blew out a window of his office several kilometres away.

The force of the explosion blew off the facade to the station and tossed another car onto the roof of a two-storey building opposite.

The police station is next to a checkpoint leading into the heavily-fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraq's interim government and foreign missions.

US embassy spokesman Bob Callahan said no US and coalition staff had been killed or wounded.

In the northern city of Mosul, a suicide bomber pulled his explosive-laden vehicle alongside a bus bringing the Kurdish peshmerga fighters into the city.

The militiamen belonged to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said Saadi Ahmed, a PUK official.

The militiamen were being brought in from the mainly Kurdish city of Irbil in order to protect PUK offices in Mosul.

The PUK backed the US-led war against Saddam Hussein and is part of the interim government.

Iraqi police and security forces are frequent targets of insurgents fighting US-led forces and the interim government.

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