US to send more troops to Baghdad

BAGHDAD -- The US military said yesterday that it is moving about 3,700 personnel with fast, light-armored vehicles into Baghdad to try to quell violence in the capital. More American soldiers are expected to follow, military officials said.

The 172d Stryker Brigade, which had been due to leave Iraq after a year's assignment, will be sent from the north to Baghdad, General George W. Casey Jr., the top US commander in Iraq, said.

The Alaska-based 172d uses a new eight-wheeled armored vehicle and has had several specialized units attached, including military police and Navy and Air Force troops.

``This will place our most experienced unit with our most mobile and agile systems in support of our main effort," Casey said. ``With the rest of the elements of the plan, this gives us a potentially decisive capability to affect security in Baghdad."

President Bush said this week that he had decided to bolster American forces in Baghdad to try to stem the tide of Sunni-Shi'ite violence -- now seen as a greater threat to Iraq than the Sunni-led insurgency.

The military also said yesterday that four US Marines had been killed in action in Iraq's restive western Anbar Province. The Marines were killed Thursday. Statements on their deaths gave no further details.

Their deaths brought the number of US service members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,573, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.

The Stryker brigade, currently based in Mosul, is expected to begin moving its headquarters to Baghdad soon. A US military official said more troops are expected to follow the brigade to Baghdad. The official, who requested anonymity because the plans have not been made public, refused to say how many would be coming or from where.

Officials said the US plan calls for moving up to 5,000 additional American personnel with armored vehicles and tanks into the capital. Some critics contend that the move will undermine confidence among Iraqi forces and expose more US soldiers to attacks by Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militias.

Meanwhile, the US military announced that a tip from a resident in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, led them to detain 25 suspects in an attack on a marketplace in Mahmoudiya last week that killed 50 people.

Sectarian violence has escalated in Iraq in recent months, with Sunni radicals, including members of Al Qaeda, and Shi'ite militias staging a string of reprisal killings.

At least 18 people were killed yesterday in Iraq, including a Sunni cleric from a tribe opposed to Al Qaeda in Iraq, who was shot and killed while driving in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

A parked car exploded in a residential district of Kirkuk, killing four and injuring 13, police said. It was the sixth car bombing this month in Kirkuk, where tensions are rising among Arabs, Kurds, and Turkomen for control of the area's vast oil wealth.

The western regional commander of the Iraqi Border Protection Force, Brigadier General Jawad Hadi al-Selawi, was killed in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, police said.

Iraq's national soccer coach resigned after receiving a death threat, sports officials said. The country's wresting coach was killed July 13. Two days later, more than 30 sporting officials, including the chairman of Iraq's Olympic committee, were seized during a meeting in Baghdad.

At least 10 have been freed, but dozens are still missing, including the Olympic committee chairman, Ahmed al-Hijiya.