Iraq attacks leave more than 25 dead

Insurgents launched four attacks early Wednesday against Iraq’s security forces, killing 27 people as the Persian Gulf nation prepares for the departure of U.S. troops at the end of the year.

A car bomb exploded outside a restaurant where police officers were dining in Madhatiya, near the city of Hillah. The blast killed a dozen people and wounded 43, according to security and health officials.

In Baghdad, a drive-by shooting at a police checkpoint in the Qahira neighborhood left two police officers dead and two wounded.

In the town of Habbaniya, west of Fallouja, a bomb exploded aboard a bus carrying soldiers to breakfast on a military base, killing 12 people and injuring a dozen.

And late Wednesday, a roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying Brig. Gen. Basim Abid Basim, chief of the motor vehicle registration department, as he traveled toward his home in the east Baghdad neighborhood of Amin. He was declared dead on arrival at a hospital.

The attacks underscored the increasing dangers faced by Iraqi security forces as the Americans wind down their troop deployment in Iraq. In August, 84 Iraqi soldiers and police officers were killed and 216 wounded.

The U.S. and Iraqi governments are negotiating whether to allow some American forces to remain in the country after the deadline for their presence expires at year’s end.

Some analysts said the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq would be stepping up its attacks regardless of the American plans.

“These attacks just coincide the imminent withdrawal of the American troops,” said Ali Haidari, a security expert. “Al Qaeda [assaults] will continue whether the Americans are here or not.”

But a lawmaker allied with militant Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose movement opposes keeping American troops in Iraq beyond 2011, suggested that the attacks were in part playing into the hands of U.S. officials.

“Those who are doing these attacks are fulfilling an American agenda to intimidate the Iraqis and make them feel they are still in need for the American troops,” lawmaker Jawad Hasnawi said.

Salman is a special correspondent.