Suicide bombing kills 18 Iraqi guardsmen

BAGHDAD -- A suicide car bombing killed at least 18 members of the Iraqi National Guard yesterday, one of the highest death tolls in months for Iraqi security forces under siege from guerrilla fighters.

The attack occurred in Balad, a mostly Shi'ite Muslim city north of Baghdad in an area heavy with Sunni insurgent activity. A civilian passerby was killed and a half-dozen guardsmen were wounded, the US military said. Iraqi officials put the death toll as high as 29.

Insurgents calling for the ouster of foreign troops and the overthrow of the US-installed interim government have stepped up their attacks on Iraqi soldiers and police in recent months.

The aim, US military officials say, is to intimidate average Iraqis and disrupt national elections scheduled for Jan. 30. Another goal is to gut the Iraqi security forces before they can train and arm themselves to effectively challenge the insurgents.

Since September, more than 1,000 members of the Iraqi Army, police, and National Guard have been killed. Military officials predict it will get worse in the next few weeks.

''We're going to see this terrible kind of attack take place even more as we get closer to the election," said US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who appeared yesterday on TV talk shows.

''The people conducting these attacks don't want to see an election."

At least two other attacks yesterday also targeted Iraqi forces.

Four police officers were killed and a fifth was wounded when insurgents ambushed their car in Samarra, a mostly Sunni city between Mosul and Baghdad. Gunmen also shot to death the police chief in the southern town of Jebala.

Insurgent groups, some of them Muslim fundamentalists such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, have deemed the elections un-Islamic. They vow to target anyone who participates.

Sunni religious and political leaders, meanwhile, have called for the voting to be postponed. They say that until security can be established, particularly in the mostly Sunni areas gripped by the worst violence, there is little chance of free and fair balloting.

Iraq's largest Sunni political party withdrew from the voting last month.

Sunni Muslims, who make up about 20 percent of the Iraqi population, fear they will be severely underrepresented at the polls. They worry that Shi'ite Muslims, who make up about 60 percent of the population, will vote overwhelmingly for a list of candidates supported by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the leading Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Leaders of that coalition called a news conference yesterday to urge Iraq's Sunnis to vote. They also sought to dispel fears and allegations that the leading Shi'ite politicians were beholden to Iran, The New York Times reported.

''Our group believes in sharing power with all Iraqi factions," said Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and survived a car bombing, an assassination attempt, last month at his Baghdad home. ''We have rejected the idea of a sectarian regime, and we believe that Iraq is for all Iraqis."

A driver and a passenger carried out the Balad attack by ramming a vehicle into a bus packed with Iraqi National Guard troops, the US military said.

The attack occurred the day after Al Qaeda in Iraq, the militant group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, posted a video clip on the Internet showing the assassination of five Iraqi security officers.

''To the families of civil defense forces, the National Guard, and the police, we tell you to say your final goodbyes to your sons before you send them to us," a masked militant said in the video, reading from a statement. ''Our reward to your sons is slaughter."

In focusing their attacks on Iraqi soldiers and police, the insurgents have made a tactical and strategic move. Iraqis are much easier targets than Americans. They drive around in pickups and sport utility vehicles equipped with a token slab of armor, if that. They lack the firepower of the Americans, and what weaponry they have they do not use as well.

In the longer term, the killings may make Iraqis rethink working with the interim government or the Americans. At the same time, the daily bloodshed chips away at the credibility of the government.

American officials say the elections, including security, will be an Iraqi effort. Though US forces are working now to safeguard polling places and other sites, they are not expected to stand guard on election day.

The guerrilla attacks have hit hardest in Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. Scores of police and Iraqi soldiers were killed in a series of attacks in November and December, some of which routed police from their stations and led to mass resignations from the force.

An attack on a Mosul police station killed an officer recently. But US officials say police in the city have regrouped and are holding their ground against frequent guerrilla attacks.

On Saturday, Iraqi security forces repelled an attack by guerrillas firing rocket-propelled grenades on a station in southeastern Mosul, the US military said yesterday. It was the fifth reported attack on the station in a week.