BAGHDAD, Iraq – A suicide attacker blew himself up in a cafe northeast of the capital Wednesday, killing 30 people as a wave of violence left 90 Iraqis dead throughout the country.
The bloodshed persisted as Iraqi security forces struggled to protect more than 1 million Shiite pilgrims streaming toward the holy city of Karbala for annual religious rituals that begin Friday. The pilgrims are facing a string of attacks along the way that have claimed at least 174 lives in two days – among 284 killed across Iraq since Tuesday.
They included 22 people – 12 police commandos and 10 civilians – who died Wednesday in a car bombing at a checkpoint in southern Baghdad set up to protect pilgrims, the U.S. military said.
Just north of the capital, a powerful bomb killed three American soldiers trying to clear explosives from a major highway, the U.S. military said. One American soldier was wounded in the attack.
American troops have stepped up efforts to clear and secure major highways around the capital as part of the Baghdad security crackdown, which began last month.
But the operation, which will eventually see an additional 17,000 U.S. combat troops in the capital, has so far failed to intimidate Sunni insurgents, who have retaliated with attacks outside the city – including those against Shiite pilgrims.
At least 13 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since Sunday, all of them in Sunni areas north and east of Baghdad. Nine Americans died Monday, the deadliest day for the U.S. military here in nearly a month.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that in recent days the number of sectarian murders was down slightly and the number of car bombings was up.
“So I think you see potentially the Iraqi people wanting to take advantage of this opportunity and the enemy wanting to keep it going,” Pace said.
Still, police reported finding 10 bullet-ridden bodies throughout Baghdad on Wednesday, most showing signs of torture. Another two were found floating in the Tigris river south of the capital.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates cited early indications that the Iraqi government is meeting the commitments it made to bolster security, although he cautioned that it was too early to reach any firm conclusions about the outcome.
“We’re right at the very beginning,” he said at the Pentagon. “But I would say that based in terms of whether the Iraqis are meeting the commitments that they’ve made to us in the security arena, I think that our view would be so far, so good.”
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