5 U.S. Soldiers, 22 Iraqis Killed on Day of Violence

Four U.S. soldiers were killed Tuesday when a mine exploded near the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, the U.S. military announced today, and a suicide bombing in Baghdad earlier in the day killed a fifth soldier and at least six Iraqis.

It was part of a violent day in which assassins gunned down 10 city police officers in five neighborhoods during a one-hour period. Across the country, at least 22 Iraqis died in acts of violence as political leaders continued their meetings on the drafting of the constitution.

Insurgents killed a police officer in Baqubah and attacked a minivan full of pilgrims traveling to Iran, killing three, police said. A judge in Kirkuk narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, and a mortar shell exploded in the troubled Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, killing two people and injuring four, according to police reports.

The U.S. military also announced Tuesday that a Marine had been killed a day earlier in Al Anbar province.

At least 43 Americans and 124 Iraqis have been killed by insurgent attacks over the last two weeks.

The soldiers near Tikrit were killed near Bayji, site of a large power generating plant and an oil refinery. The area has seen numerous deadly attacks on the U.S. military and contractors.

The soldiers died after a mine exploded under one of their vehicles in their convoy. It was unclear whether they were in the vehicle hit by the mine or in a second that was damaged when a tree fell onto it after the explosion, said Navy Chief Cory Drake, a military spokesman in Baghdad. He noted that early reports from Bayji said that the tree injured those in the second vehicle and killed a military dog.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, meanwhile, said one of the more divisive ideas floated during discussions of the constitution, a referendum on independence for Kurdistan, had been ruled out.

Speaking at a news conference, Khalilzad said the Kurds had decided to be “part of Iraq,” in effect signaling that there would be no referendum. Previously, some Kurdish politicians had said they wanted a clause in the constitution allowing the region of northern Iraq to hold a vote on independence in the next eight years. The idea of Kurdistan seceding from the rest of the country is anathema to most non-Kurdish Iraqis.

The talks are expected to continue up to the Monday deadline for sending a draft of the constitution to the National Assembly for consideration. Under the timetable set out in the transitional administrative law, which most of the leaders involved in the talks signed last year, if the assembly approves the constitution, a referendum on the document will be held Oct. 15 and new national elections will occur in mid-December.

The most difficult issues in drafting the constitution are apportioning power between the central government and the provinces and the division of oil revenue. The groups are still trading proposals with less than a week to go.

“The discussions only started today, forming timetables.... The talks did not reach the stage of agreements or disagreements,” said Kamran Qaradaghi, a spokesman for transitional President Jalal Talabani.

Sunni Muslim Arabs, who ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein, worry that if Iraqi provinces are permitted to form semiautonomous regions, as the three Kurdish provinces have, then predominantly Shiite Muslim southern Iraq might form a region that would join Iran. Indeed, the Shiites want to form semiautonomous regions and argue that they should not get less than the Kurds.

Tuesday’s suicide attack in central Baghdad occurred at 1:50 p.m., when a car bomb detonated near a convoy that had stopped at a crowded intersection, the U.S. military said in a statement. In addition to the deaths, scores of people, including two American soldiers, were wounded, the statement said.

In Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying pilgrims to visit shrines in Iran.

Three of the 11 men were killed and eight were injured.

Times staff writer Caesar Ahmed contributed to this report.