Eight Marines dead in suicide car bombing

BAGHDAD -- A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb yesterday next to a US military convoy west of Baghdad, killing eight Marines and wounding nine. It was the deadliest day for the military in almost six months.

In the capital yesterday, a car bombing outside the headquarters of the Al Arabiya satellite television channel killed seven Iraqis and wounded 17. It was the biggest terrorist strike against a media organization here.

The attack on the Marines near the town of Abu Ghraib, between Fallujah and Baghdad, caused the most US military deaths in a single day since May 2, when nine troops were killed in mortar attacks and roadside bombings in Ramadi, Baghdad, and Kirkuk.

The Marines declined to give other specific details about yesterday's bombing.

''Anything we provide only serves to aid the enemy in determining the effectiveness of their tactics, techniques, and procedures," said First Lieutenant Lyle L. Gilbert, a spokesman for the Marines.

The violence hinted at the bloodshed the military could face if US Marines and insurgents engage in a full battle over the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. Insurgents and their sympathizers have pledged to mount a campaign of violence and civil disobedience if US forces enter the city. Insurgents have been digging trenches and amassing weapons in anticipation of a major US offensive, expected in the next month, to retake Fallujah and its slightly larger sister city, Ramadi.

US forces bombed a rebel position on the outskirts of Fallujah yesterday, but a Marine officer said that the skirmishes did not signal the beginning of the operation to retake Fallujah. US commanders told reporters at Camp Fallujah that the Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, would have to approve any major military operation in Anbar Province.

''We're gearing up to do an operation and when we're told to go, we'll go," said Brigadier General Dennis Hejlik, deputy commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force. ''When we do go, we'll whack them."

Yesterday, Allawi and his national security team met with sheiks and religious leaders from Fallujah, Ramadi, and the violence-racked northern city of Mosul. His government has been negotiating with local leaders from areas across the so-called Sunni Triangle, but the talks have produced no serious agreement.

According to a statement released by his office yesterday, Allawi called on the sheiks and religious leaders to ''join the government in condemning both the terrorists and those seeking to justify terrorism."

''The door remained open for the religious and tribal leadership of Fallujah to deliver a peaceful solution to the situation there," the statement said.

But it also continued Allawi's unyielding demand that the leaders of Fallujah expel all terrorists, turn over their weapons, and allow Iraqi police and troops to take control of the city.

Allawi told the local leaders that ''the government owed it to the Iraqi people not to stand back while elements used Fallujah as a base of operations for terrorist operations across the country," according to the statement.

But representatives of the fighters in Fallujah did not seem optimistic that a peaceful solution could be reached.

''If they intend to attack Fallujah, I wish they would hurry up," said Abdullah Janabi, a tribal resistance leader in Fallujah. He heads the Mujahideen Shura council, which coordinates rebel activity in Anbar Province, the sprawling desert area that stretches from the western fringes of Baghdad to the Syrian and Jordanian borders.

''I am bored of their threats, and we are prepared for them," Janabi said.

Janabi added that US forces should expect to suffer heavy casualties in any attack.

Last night after sunset, witnesses in Fallujah said US troops in Humvees and armored vehicles had advanced to within 2 miles of the city's southern edge, drawing insurgents into skirmishes and killing 16. Ahmed Hardani, an official at Fallujah's main hospital, said at least nine bodies had been brought there. Meanwhile, an insurgent who gave his name only as Abu Ali said 16 fighters, including five foreign Arabs, had been killed in the confrontation.

The US military has estimated that several thousand resistance fighters are holed up in Fallujah, including a few hundred foreign Arab jihadis; recently they raised their estimate of insurgent strength in the city to 5,000. But the Mujahideen Shura council claims to coordinate 15,000 fighters in the city alone, and says thousands more operate in other parts of Anbar.

By this weekend, witnesses said, most civilians had fled Fallujah because they think a fierce battle is inevitable. All but a half-dozen grocery stores have closed in the city, which has a population of 250,000.

Ahmed Said Sabir, 27, a taxi owner, sent his parents and sisters to stay with relatives in Baghdad two weeks ago to escape the expected fallout from the fighting.

Speaking by telephone from his home in Fallujah, he said US air raids had destroyed two homes on his block in five days. .

''The Americans will terrorize this city," he said. In April, during the fight for Fallujah, Sabir said, he fled the city for a month. This time, he said, he intends to stay and guard the family property.

''At least I will be with people I know in my city," Sabir said.

The bombing outside the Al Arabiya office rocked Baghdad's upscale Mansur neighborhood. The dead were not identified late yesterday, but an employee of the Dubai-based network said at least one of the seven killed worked for the station.

The network is considered to be more moderate than its competitor, Al-Jazeera, and its executives have regularly criticized Islamist terrorists -- drawing criticism from militants.

At least three Al Arabiya employees have been killed by US troops in Iraq since April 2003 during military operations, and the network has come under scathing criticism from US officials for allegedly repeating insurgent propaganda.

Employees ''were trapped between fire and the shattering shards of glass," the Associated Press quoted Sa'ad al-Husseini, a correspondent for another Arab television channel, MBC, as saying. MBC had office space in the same building.

An Iraqi group called the 1920 Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack on an Islamic website.

''Thank God, the building of the Arabic-speaking Americanized spy journalists was destroyed," said the statement from the group, named for the year of an Iraqi uprising against British control. The message could not be independently verified.

In other violence, the AP reported that Iraqi troops killed 14 people and wounded 10 when they fired on cars in the contested city of Haswa, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, near the spot where 11 Iraqi National Guardsmen were kidnapped and killed recently.

The AP quoted Abdul Razzaq al-Janabi, director of Iskandariyah General Hospital, as saying that the Iraqi troops had opened fire on three minibuses and three vans after insurgents attacked a US convoy. US and Iraqi officials had no comment late yesterday on the clash.

An Iraqi correspondent for the Globe contributed to this account, reporting from Fallujah. Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.