21 Killed in Attacks on Iraqi Police Officers and U.S. Forces

In a series of attacks against U.S. forces and the Iraqi police who aid them, insurgents killed at least 21 people over a 24-hour period, American and Iraqi officials said Sunday. One U.S. soldier was among the dead.

The latest burst of violence underscores the difficulties faced by American and Iraqi authorities as they prepare for a formal handover of power at the end of the month.

Most Iraqis have been disappointed by what they perceive as American authorities’ failure to impose public order during more than a year of U.S.-led occupation.

The violence overshadowed diplomatic and military preparations to ensure a smooth handover of power to Iraqis on June 30.

At least nine people died and more than 30 were hurt when a car bomb detonated outside the U.S. air base at Taji, about 10 miles north of the capital. The injured included three American soldiers, the military said.

Separately, a U.S. soldier died in a mortar attack early Sunday at an American base near Balad, also north of Baghdad.

Sadr City, a slum on Baghdad’s eastern outskirts, was the site of an attack by insurgents Sunday. The impoverished area, home to about 2 million people, has been a focal point of fighting between U.S. troops and members of a militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.

In the attack, assailants directed heavy gunfire at an Iraqi police station and subsequently halted long enough to tell those inside that they had a single chance to leave. Then they detonated a small explosive, witnesses and Iraqi officials said.

In a more brazen attack Saturday afternoon, an Iraqi police station was targeted in the town of Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad. At least 11 Iraqi police officers were killed, and on Sunday, rescuers, including American troops, combed the wreckage for bodies.

The roof of the station caved in, and only the structure’s outer walls were left standing. Amid the rubble lay the partial sole of a shoe and the tattered remains of a police uniform shirt, bearing a lieutenant’s star.

Witnesses said the gunmen split into two groups, one dressed in police uniforms and carrying a large box, possibly filled with explosives. The second group, in civilian garb, opened fire on a gas station across the road, then approached the police post and seized rifles from its guards.

“I saw the man who shot me -- he was dressed as a first lieutenant,” said 20-year-old police Sgt. Tuama Salih Ali. “I lay on the ground and pretended to be dead.... I heard them shooting my colleagues.”

Meanwhile, more details emerged Sunday about an assault a day earlier against foreign contractors working for a U.S. security company on the increasingly dangerous road between the capital and its airport.

The company, the North Carolina-based Blackwater USA, confirmed without providing details that four of its employees -- two Americans and two Poles -- were killed in Saturday’s ambush.

Four other Blackwater workers died in Fallouja, west of Baghdad, at the end of March, which led to a three-week battle between insurgents and American forces.

An e-mailed claim of responsibility, reported by Associated Press, said a group called Unification and Holy War had carried out the rocket attack against the contractors’ vehicles, and also the car bombing outside the base at Taji. The claims could not be verified.

Most of those hurt and killed in the Taji blast were said to be Iraqi civilians waiting to go to jobs inside the base.

Also Sunday, the U.S. military freed 320 prisoners from Abu Ghraib in the fourth such release since April, when the prison became the center of an ongoing outcry over the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. forces guarding them. The latest release brings the number of Abu Ghraib prisoners down to about 3,100.

In the southern city of Najaf, a fledgling truce between the U.S. military and Sadr’s militia appeared to be holding. In Najaf and the nearby city of Kufa, those in possession of weapons lined up to take part in a program to turn over guns to the authorities in return for cash.

Holders of Kalashnikov assault rifles were given $100; mortar shells drew $60, and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers went for $250, residents said.