Three Attacks Kill Six Westerners in Iraq

A roadside bomb, a drive-by shooting and an ambush killed six Westerners, including two U.S. soldiers, in Iraq on Saturday, as violence persisted against the American-led coalition that is ruling the nation for three more weeks before handing power back to Iraqis.

For the second day in a row, U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum. Two soldiers died and two others were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in roughly the same spot where five soldiers were killed the previous day.

An ambush on the highway leading to Baghdad’s airport killed three men. Gunmen firing from fields on both sides of the road hit two sport-utility vehicles carrying the men. A U.S. Army captain who was at the scene said he believed that the men were private security contractors, but he could not verify their nationalities.

The contractors apparently returned fire from their vehicles until their fuel tanks exploded. Their bodies were charred, and it was unclear whether gunshots or the fire had killed the men, the captain said. A trail of blood leading away from the shooting site suggested that at least one attacker had been hit, he said.

The ambush came on a stretch of highway next to a neighborhood that is home to many former members of President Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency. The gunmen had little cover; U.S. troops had cut down date palms lining the highway to remove hiding places.

In the northern city of Mosul, one more civilian security contractor was killed and three others were wounded in a drive-by shooting. The contractors were driving in a coalition convoy when they were attacked, a coalition spokesman said.

South of Baghdad, the state of on-and-off fighting between U.S. forces and the militia of radical cleric Muqtada Sadr remained uncertain.

U.S. soldiers have been battling Sadr’s followers, who are positioned in mosques in Najaf and Kufa. The fighting killed 100 Iraqis and two soldiers last week alone, according to U.S. military reports. On Friday, the governor of Najaf declared that the American troops and the Shiite Muslim militias would leave the two cities and that Iraqi police officers -- nearly all of whom had fled their posts at the start of fighting -- had assumed full responsibility for security.

But on Saturday, Army Brig. Gen. Mark P. Hertling of the 1st Armored Division said that American forces would continue to patrol in Najaf and Kufa except around the mosques, and that Americans intended to keep bases in the region.

The soldiers will assist Iraqi police if the governor requests help, Hertling said. “This is not a truce or a cease-fire,” he said.

Adding to the confusion over the situation, Najaf’s police chief said he did not plan to expel the Shiite militiamen from the mosques. “As long as they are not showing their weapons, I have no problem with them staying in the mosques,” said the chief, Said Gazahib Jazeeri.

Residents said they did not see police Friday or Saturday around the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf or the Kufa mosque, where the insurgents are based. Jazeeri said 400 officers were on patrol, some out of uniform.

It also remains unclear what the U.S. and the interim Iraqi government expect of Sadr. At the start of fighting more than two months ago, the U.S. said its goal was to kill or capture Sadr, who is wanted for his alleged role in the killing of a rival cleric.

Iraq’s newly appointed interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, however, said in an interview with the Al Jazeera satellite television channel that “there is an agreement with Sadr that he will negotiate the issue [of his arrest] with judicial authorities.”

A spokesman for Sadr told journalists in Najaf that the cleric met Saturday with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s leading Shiite cleric. The spokesman would not say what the two discussed.

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Hong reported from Baghdad and Duhigg from Najaf. A Times special correspondent also reported from Najaf.