Iraqi Bride Among 16 Slain in Rebel Attacks

Iraqi army Capt. Wissam Abdul-Wahab and his bride were riding home Friday, a day after their wedding, when gunmen sprayed their car with bullets, killing her and wounding him.

Relatives were too distraught to tell Abdul-Wahab that his 23-year-old wife was dead.

“My poor Sally, she was very happy yesterday,” her mother-in-law, Latifah Mohammed, said, sobbing.

Abdul-Wahab lay in a hospital bed as doctors removed fragments of bone and shrapnel from his right hand, begging to know what happened to his wife.

His brother Ahmed, his eyes filled with tears, said, “She is fine. She is fine, believe me.”

The brother said he believed assailants attacked the couple because he was a police lieutenant in Fallouja and his brother was an army officer.

In a country where violence claims dozens of lives every day, it was one more story of heartbreak. At least 15 people died in other attacks.

One Iraqi soldier and three civilians were killed during clashes in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said. The other 11 were Iraqi police or soldiers killed in scattered attacks throughout Baghdad.

Also Friday, the U.S. military announced that a Marine was killed Thursday in a roadside bombing while conducting combat operations west of Baghdad.