Death comes uninvited to a Fallouja wedding

Everyone assumed the car parked outside the groom’s home belonged to a friend or relative. But as the joyful, beribboned convoy pulled up conveying the bride to her new family, the vehicle exploded with a shattering boom.

Authorities and witnesses said as many as five guests were killed and 10 were injured in the blast Thursday at a police officer’s wedding in Fallouja, a hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency in Al Anbar province.

Word of the attack came as Iraqi police said they had killed as many as 80 Al Qaeda-linked gunmen and arrested 50 others in clashes on the city’s outskirts the previous day. The figures could not be independently verified.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced the deaths of two Marines in combat Wednesday in Al Anbar. At least 3,164 U.S. personnel have been reported killed in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, according to the website icasualties.org, which tracks military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In an instant, the explosion in Fallouja turned a joyful celebration into a scene of horror. Women wailed and men shouted for help as they tried to aid the survivors.

“There was debris everywhere and dust mixing with puddles of blood,” said police Lt. Wissam Mohammed, a guest at the wedding.

The bride and groom survived, but Mohammed said five people were killed. A hospital official later put the death toll at three.

Police and government officials said deep divisions had arisen between Fallouja residents who support the city’s new authorities and those backing the anti-American insurgency.

On Wednesday, gunmen reportedly raided nearby Ameriyat Fallouja, which Col. Abdullah Mohammed, police chief in Fallouja, described as an enclave of government supporters in an area dominated by militants.

Iraqi police responded, trading fire with the assailants for hours, said Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police. A number of foreign fighters were among the approximately 80 dead and 50 held, including Afghans and Arabs, Mohammed and Khalaf said. The officials did not provide information about police or civilian casualties.

U.S. military officials did not immediately respond to a request for information about the incident. They have sought to enlist the support of provincial tribal leaders in the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq, and periodic clashes between those parties have been reported in Al Anbar.

The violence west of Baghdad came as U.S. and Iraqi forces are focusing their attention on the capital, where Sunnis and Shiites are engaged in civil war. The deployment of thousands of additional U.S. and Iraqi troops in recent weeks has coincided with an apparent drop in sectarian killings there, but it has also raised concern that militants might shift their attention elsewhere.

Police in the capital recovered 15 unidentified bodies Thursday, apparent victims of sectarian death squads. Before the crackdown, it was common for more than 30 bodies to be found in a day.

In Shiite-dominated east Baghdad, one person was killed and four were injured when a roadside bomb exploded near Beirut Square, police said. The target was a minibus taking government employees to work, they said.

Another bomb targeted the convoy of Jalaluddin Saghir, a prominent Shiite cleric and close government ally who has survived other assassination attempts. The cleric and his entourage were unharmed, an aide said.

Late Thursday, a thunderous barrage of explosions rocked the capital on what was otherwise an unusually calm day. Iraqi military officials said U.S. forces were striking targets in Dora, a Sunni-dominated neighborhood in south Baghdad. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

South of Baghdad in Iskandariya, insurgent mortar fire killed four Iraqi civilians and wounded 10, the U.S. military said.

In Baqubah, U.S. forces arrested police Brig. Gen. Ghassan Khadran on suspicion of running death squads, provincial authorities said. He was the second senior provincial officer arrested on such charges.

U.S. and Iraqi forces killed at least four suspected insurgents and detained 27 in raids around the country Thursday, the U.S. military said.

In other developments, two U.S. pilots were injured when an Army OH-58 Kiowa helicopter made a hard landing north of Baghdad, the military said. Initial reports indicated that the incident, which occurred south of Kirkuk, was the result of mechanical failure, not hostile fire, a brief statement said.

In an interview broadcast on Iraqi television from neighboring Jordan, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he was in good health and would return home soon. Talabani sought treatment in the Jordanian capital, Amman, after collapsing Sunday from exhaustion and dehydration caused by lung and sinus infections, wire reports said.

zavis@latimes.com

Times staff writers Said Rifai and Saif Hameed in Baghdad and special correspondents in Baghdad, Baqubah, Mosul and Hillah contributed to this report.