Troops Kill 54 Attackers in Firefights

Insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles opened fire Sunday on three American convoys in this central Iraqi city, provoking firefights that left 54 attackers dead and about a dozen wounded, the U.S. military said.

Five U.S. soldiers were wounded in the firefights, none seriously, said Master Sgt. Robert Cargie, a spokesman for the Army’s 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit. A civilian traveling with one of the U.S. convoys was also hurt. None of the injuries was considered life-threatening.

The battle came as U.S. authorities reported the killings of three more foreigners -- two South Korean electricians and a Colombian contractor -- in what appears to be a dramatic escalation of the insurgent campaign targeting U.S. allies in Iraq. On Saturday, seven Spanish intelligence officers and two Japanese diplomats were killed in separate attacks, both roughly within the central region known as the Sunni Triangle, where opposition to the U.S. occupation has been stiffest.

If the death toll of 54 is confirmed, it would make Sunday one of the bloodiest days of the low-intensity conflict that has raged across Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April. But there were widely conflicting reports of the incident, and hospital officials in this city northwest of Baghdad this morning put the toll at nine people killed and 80 injured.

With the Sunday morning U.S. news shows abuzz about the escalating violence, U.S. authorities here made strenuous efforts to counter the impression that Iraq may be sliding toward an even more perilous cycle of violence and disorder.

“Not only is the majority of the country ... at peace, but the reconstruction continues,” said Dan Senor, chief spokesman for L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq. “While there are isolated incidents of violence and instability, they are nothing more than isolated instances.”

But at a Baghdad press briefing, military and civilian officials acknowledged that attacks by insurgents -- believed to be composed of former regime loyalists and some foreign volunteers -- appear designed to sow fear among anyone who aids the U.S.-led occupation.

“They are clearly targeting coalition members in an effort to intimidate all allies from operating within Iraq,” Senor said.

On Fox News Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, repeated his call for more troops in Iraq.

“We cannot lose,” McCain said. “But in order to save American lives, we have to be much more robust and send whatever troops are necessary.”

McCain expressed particular concern that the violence appears to be migrating from the Sunni Triangle to other areas of the country, including the strategic northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, once considered showcases for the U.S. occupation.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about the level of sophistication of some of these attacks increasing,” McCain said.

U.S. commanders here have been adamant in insisting that their current troop level of about 130,000 is sufficient to do the job. They say their forces are transitioning into a lighter, more mobile corps with greater intelligence-gathering capacity -- all steps designed to improve their ability to confront a guerrilla-style threat.

“There is no way we’re going to put this mission at risk in terms of combat power,” Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top Army commander in Iraq, said this weekend. “The mixes of forces will get adjusted.”

The mounting attacks on several fronts indicate that the insurgent force is far from spent, following several days of relative quiet during the post-Ramadan holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

U.S. officials say the number of individual attacks on military targets dropped by as much as 50% in recent weeks, with insurgents turning to “soft targets” such as civilians and Iraqi police officers.

At the same time, however, enemy fire contributed to the downing of four U.S. helicopters in November, which killed 39 American soldiers.

The actions in Samarra and far western Iraq also suggest that the insurgents are revisiting a tactic -- large-scale ambushes of U.S. convoys with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades -- that had been on the wane in recent weeks.

Armed combatants have been utilizing stealthier means of assault, such as roadside bombs and rocket and mortar attacks, which generally give insurgents a better chance to escape.

“This is a clever and adaptive enemy: He will try something new,” Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the coalition’s deputy director for operations, told a press briefing in the capital. “But he is also facing a clever and adaptive enemy himself.”

Accounts of Sunday’s fighting in Samarra, known for its spiral minaret, were conflicting.

According to the U.S. military, the attacks began shortly after 1:30 p.m. when two U.S. logistical convoys that were providing protection for deliveries of the new Iraqi currency to separate banks came under fire from insurgents -- one on the city’s east side and the other on the west. The third attack occurred about an hour later, when another convoy was ambushed as it traveled through the city.

In the first two attacks, the convoys were hit with roadside bombs, small-arms fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades after arriving at the banks, members of the military said. The banks had been alerted in advance that the money was coming, so military commanders suspect the insurgents received a tip about the deliveries.

U.S. soldiers responded with small-arms fire, tank rounds and canon fire from Bradley fighting vehicles, destroying three buildings housing the attackers.

“We had already established a solid perimeter and we were able to return a larger volume of fire back at them,” said Capt. Andrew Deponai, a company commander in the battle. “It was touch and go for awhile.”

The Fijian contractors who were delivering the money were unfazed by the battle, said Deponai, who estimated that 60 to 100 assailants took part in the attack.

“They were unloading the money with rounds flying over their heads. They joined in the fight.” The currency exchange was successfully completed, he said.

In the third attack, four Iraqi men in a black BMW attempted to ambush a convoy, opening fire with automatic weapons, a U.S. military spokeswoman said. Soldiers returned fire, wounding all four assailants, capturing them and recovering a cache of weapons from their vehicle.

Cargie said many of the attackers -- who opened fire from rooftops and alleyways -- were wearing the black uniforms of the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary group loyal to ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Residents of Samarra, however, disputed the accounts provided by the Americans.

Residents said this morning that they knew of no one wearing Fedayeen outfits. Dr. Waleed Faris, a physician at Samarra Republican Hospital, the city’s only hospital, said only eight Iraqis and one Iranian were killed in the incidents. A number of residents said some of the victims were workers at a pharmaceutical factory, which was mistakenly hit by projectiles fired from U.S. tanks.

This morning, a burned-out car could be seen in front of a mosque in the city, and several damaged vehicles were lined up near the hospital. It was unclear how they were involved in Sunday’s battle.

In another incident Sunday, the two South Korean electricians were killed on the road that runs past Samarra. They were in Iraq under contract to work on power lines at a transmission station near Tikrit, according to reports. The two were killed in an ambush between Baghdad and Tikrit, the reports said.

The killings, which come with South Korea in the throes of a raucous public debate about a pledge to send 3,000 troops to Iraq, could further complicate U.S. efforts to build up forces for the international coalition.

South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, who denounced the killings as “intolerable” and “inhumane,” quickly convened an emergency meeting of his country’s national security council to discuss the matter today. Afterward, Foreign Minister Yun Yong Kwan issued a brief statement.

“Despite the sacrifices of the tragic incident, the government will not give in to violence and human killings, and we will continue to make efforts to provide humanitarian aid and join relief and reconstruction projects in Iraq,” he said.

The U.S. military also announced Sunday that the Colombian contractor was killed and two associates were wounded Saturday when their convoy came under fire near Balad, north of Baghdad on the road to Tikrit and Samarra.

Meanwhile, a U.S. military official gave more details on the attack Saturday that cost the lives of seven Spanish intelligence agents about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Lt. Col. Pete Johnson of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division told of a well-coordinated ambush, saying it culminated in an angry mob descending on the scene as a sole survivor managed to slip away.

The attack involved both a drive-by shooting to waylay the two-vehicle convoy and the precise placement of gunmen on the ground to finish off any survivors in a pre-planned roadside “kill zone,” Johnson said.

“This was clearly a staged and well-planned ambush,” said Johnson, whose battalion occupies the largely rural zone where the attack took place.

It appears the Spaniards were targeted as foreigners riding in new SUVs through a hazardous stretch of major road between Baghdad and Najaf, which is south of the capital. Officials say there is no evidence that the attackers were specifically targeting the Spanish intelligence team or had been alerted to their presence.

“This could have been any enemy that saw a soft target and saw the opportunity to shoot either at a coalition vehicle, a private vehicle, or a military vehicle,” said Kimmitt, the coalition deputy director.

At the scene early Sunday, angry young men who called themselves “moujahedeen” -- or holy warriors -- applauded the attack on the Spanish and vowed that such strikes would mount. Several said they had been involved in the attack and one, who gave his name as Muhannad Janabi, displayed a passport he said was taken from one of the dead Spaniards.

“Everyone here will fight the Americans and their allies,” said Janabi, who described himself as a 31-year-old farmer in the broad plain between the Tigris and Euphrates south of the capital. “We are fighting in the path of God. No one can defeat us. We are willing to give our lives to this fight against the invaders.”

The two vehicles were targeted because they appeared to be ferrying foreigners, Janabi said.

One or two cars followed the Spaniards’ vehicles before pulling alongside them and opening fire, according to official accounts. The Spaniards’ two vehicles were forced to the side of the road on the outskirts Latifiyah, a town where the pro-U.S. police chief and a prominent contractor had been assassinated a week earlier.

On the side of the road, other attackers positioned nearby opened fire, the Army said. It is unclear whether the Spanish agents, who were armed, had the opportunity to fire back.

A crowd of more than 100 people -- some armed with sticks and clubs -- soon descended on the scene and looted bodies and the vehicles, both of which burned, said Johnson of the 82nd Airborne. Television footage shot by a passing news crew showed a handful of joyous Iraqis celebrating amid the carnage.

But one Spanish agent was somehow able to evade the attackers and escape by flagging a passing police car, the Army said.

It took the Army about one hour and 20 minutes to reach the scene of the ambush. Contributing factors, Johnson said, were a delay in reporting the incident to police and traffic en route to the site.

Spain has been a strong supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has sent about 1,300 troops here. Sunday’s deaths were not its first losses from hostile fire. A Spanish diplomat working with Spain’s intelligence agency was assassinated in Baghdad in October, and a Spanish navy captain was killed in the truck bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad in August.

The news of the slayings Saturday hit the Spanish contingent here hard. The principal job of the agents was to provide security and guidance to the Spanish troops deployed in Iraq, said Maj. Jose Luis Perez Ucha at the Spanish garrison in Najaf. He said he had known two of the agents, former military men, for more than 20 years.

“I am in complete shock that this has happened -- I am floating I am so sad,” Perez said. “These were fine men. They were not involved in espionage. They were like us: Just trying to help the people of Iraq. This is a great tragedy.”

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Daniszewski reported from Samarra and McDonnell from Baghdad. Times staff writers Edmund Sanders in Washington and Barbara Demick in Seoul contributed to this report.