BAGHDAD, Iraq – In the western Baghdad neighborhood of Yarmuk, insurgents used what police at the scene described as a new tactic in the area. After a car bomb exploded, killing two people, a sniper hiding in a nearby building shot a policeman who rushed to the scene.
The officer was struck in the arm, but a U.S. soldier shielded him from further gunfire, crouching in front of him and training a rifle on the building from which the first shot was fired.
Onlookers expressed surprise that the soldier was not the target.
“There were many American soldiers at the scene, but he did not shoot at them,” said Ahmad Sadoon, 26. “They are after Iraqis.”
In the Baghdad area, the deadliest of four car bombings occurred in the southern suburb of Dora, where explosives in a Kia sedan parked near a police station and an oil refinery were detonated by remote control just after 9 a.m.
Two female students who were passengers in a passing vehicle were killed, along with the driver of that vehicle, according to Lt. Jamal Hussein of the Dora police. He said the target appeared to be a police patrol in the area.
In all, at least 72 Iraqis died across northern and central portions of the country Wednesday. The death toll over the past two weeks neared 400, one of the most violent periods since the U.S. invasion two years ago.
Iraqi officials say the wave of violence is timed to capitalize on political uncertainty during the long transition to a new Shiite Muslim-led government. Negotiations about who would hold senior positions began in late April.
The goal of insurgents “is to destabilize the country,” said Laith Kubba, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. In selecting new ministers, al-Jaafari struggled to satisfy the demands of Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups, particularly Sunni Muslims, from whose ranks the bulk of the insurgents are drawn.
The number of insurgent attacks has roughly doubled since March to 70 a day, while tips leading to the capture of perpetrators have also increased, according to Kubba. “But in the short term there is nothing that would enable the government to stop these attacks,” he acknowledged.
Wednesday’s bombings came as a U.S. Marine offensive near the Syrian border in western Iraq continued into its fourth day. In a string of villages near the town of Rummana, north of the Euphrates river, commanders reported that insurgents and foreign fighters had largely dispersed.
“The area appears devoid of military-aged males. It’s mostly women and children,” said Col. Bob Chase, operations chief for the 2nd Marine Division, which is leading the assault. “We are focusing our attention on what is basically their own underground railroad, what we call the rat lines, which are basically smuggling routes and places where people could be hiding.”
Abu Karrar, 41, who said he was an Iraqi member of the insurgent group Al-Qaida in Iraq, told a reporter near the town of Karabilah, where Marines were operating, that “we use the same method they use. They use what they call multinational forces, and we use our brothers, the Arabs and Muslims.”
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