4 Iraqi Women Slain on Way to Work at Base

Four Iraqi women who worked in the laundry at a U.S. military base here were killed when gunmen opened fire on a minibus taking them to their jobs. The women were among at least 10 people -- including two U.S. soldiers -- slain in violent episodes across Iraq in a 24-hour period.

Despite the bloodshed, U.S. commanders here declared that they had made significant progress against the Iraqi insurgency. U.S. forces have dealt a blow to loyalists of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, said a U.S. general, who predicted greater stability within the next six months.

The bus shooting was the latest attack on Iraqis working for the U.S.-led occupation and the first time that a group of women believed to be collaborators had been targeted. Previous attacks have targeted politicians, Iraqi police and, in rare cases, translators for the U.S. military.

On Thursday, three Iraqi law enforcement officers -- two highway patrolmen and one policeman -- were killed in a shootout with a criminal gang on the road between Fallouja and Ramadi, an area notorious for banditry and carjackings. Also killed in the shooting was a Baghdad merchant on his way to Amman, Jordan, who was caught in the cross-fire.

Late Wednesday, two American soldiers were killed and a third was critically wounded by mortar fire on the edge of Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said. The two deaths raised to 503 the number of U.S. soldiers who have died since the war began March 20.

Despite the frequent attacks, U.S. commanders on the ground presented an upbeat assessment of their fight against the anti-American insurgency.

Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit, Hussein’s hometown, said U.S. forces have “brought to their knees” the former president’s loyalists, who form the backbone of the insurgency in areas north and northeast of Baghdad.

“I believe within six months, I think you’re going to see some normalcy,” Odierno said.

The general added that the threat was coming increasingly from Iraqi nationalists rather than former regime elements. Their goal was to get the United States out of Iraq, he said.

Odierno acknowledged that attacks against Iraqis had increased considerably. In his central Iraq operating area, there have been 15 violent incidents targeting the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps or police in the last two weeks, compared with two or three a month ago.

Odierno made his remarks from his headquarters in Tikrit in a satellite-video news conference for Pentagon reporters in Washington.

The latest bloodshed hinders the U.S. effort to bring security to Iraq by early spring, when Iraqis are scheduled to attend caucuses and select members of a transitional government. The caucus meetings will bring large numbers of Iraqis together in public places -- events that would be difficult to protect from guerrilla attack.

Under the U.S. plan, a legislature selected by caucuses in Iraq’s 18 provinces would appoint a provisional government that would prepare for full elections in 2005.

The plan has run into opposition from Iraq’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, whose demand for early elections has wide support among Iraqis. Full elections would probably be even more vulnerable to attack, coalition officials said.

The bloody ambush of the laundry workers occurred early Wednesday as their minibus and two other vehicles drove toward the American base on the deserted stretch of highway between Fallouja and Habbaniyah -- about 30 miles from Baghdad along the Euphrates River.

The women had commuted for more than an hour, leaving their Baghdad homes before dawn to catch the bus to Forward Operation Base Ridgeway, less than a mile west of Fallouja. Some were dozing when a pickup truck blocked the minibus’ route. Seconds later, gunmen opened fire on the bus, said hospital officials in Ramadi who spoke to wounded passengers.

The women are believed to have been Christians, as none wore the traditional Muslim head covering and their names are of the kind used by Arab Christians. A doctor at the Ramadi hospital said the four were killed by Kalashnikov rifle fire.

The women had been employed at the base as laundry workers when Hussein’s soldiers were stationed there and stayed on when the Americans arrived.

“No one from around here wants to work for the Americans,” said Hammad Saeed, a former co-worker of the women and now a policeman at the Ramadi hospital. “It’s a worry for everybody. They are just Iraqi innocent people doing their job. Look at what happened today with the police being killed. We are just trying to make a living.”

“Sometimes when [anti-American insurgents] pass by a group of [police], they whisper, ‘Agent, agent,’ meaning we are working for the Americans,” said Saeed, adding that he signed up with the police force because he was out of a job and also “I was thinking that the area of Ramadi should be served by its own citizens, not by strangers.”

U.S. military officials condemned the attack against the women. “It really shows a certain amount of desperation, if not just coldheartedness,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a military spokesman. “These were women that were working on an American base, simply providing laundry service.

“We believe that the purpose behind [the attack] is to send a message of terror to those people that if you work for the coalition

Most people in the area who were interviewed showed little sympathy for the victims, indicating the depth of anger at the U.S.-led coalition. “A lot of people die every day, and no asks about them,” a senior hospital official said.

“And, a lot of women have died,” he said, adding that some have died at the hands of U.S. troops.

The attack on the Iraqi police occurred Thursday as members of Fallouja’s anti-crime task force patrolled the road between Ramadi and Fallouja. An assailant in one car threw a grenade into the police vehicle while other gunmen opened fire on the policemen, killing two members of the force. Five other officers were injured, police said.

The civilian passerby who was slain was identified as Ahmed Shakur Dulaymi, 42, of Baghdad.

“I just called his family,” a senior officer said. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell them he was dead. I just told them he had very bad injuries.”

In the north, an Iraqi man was killed and three were wounded, one seriously, when a roadside bomb exploded 16 miles northwest of the oil capital, Kirkuk, local police told wire services Thursday. The bomb detonated on the road between Kirkuk and Mosul in an area frequented by U.S. military patrols.

In south-central Iraq, a Spanish paramilitary police officer was shot and seriously wounded near Diwaniyah, Spain’s Defense Ministry said, according to wire services.

Maj. Gonzalo Perez Garcia, security chief for the Spanish-Latin American Plus Ultra brigade in the coalition, was shot in the head during a raid on a home in Hamsa, 25 miles from Diwaniyah.

Times staff writer Edmund Sanders in Baghdad contributed to this report.