5 Marines Killed in Bombing; Australian Freed

Five Marines were killed Wednesday in western Iraq when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said, and a suicide bomber killed at least 23 Iraqi soldiers at a mess hall north of Baghdad during another violent day across Iraq.

Iraqi troops also rescued a kidnapped Australian contractor during a raid in the capital, officials announced Wednesday.

The military provided few details about the Marines’ deaths beyond saying that they were killed during combat operations near Ramadi. A week ago, insurgents killed five Marines in nearby Haqlaniya. Military experts say guerrillas are using more powerful and sophisticated roadside bombs to penetrate the Americans’ armored vehicles.

At least 1,700 U.S. troops have died since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to a count by Associated Press.

In the mess hall incident, a suicide bomber wearing an Iraqi army uniform penetrated base security and detonated an explosives belt in the middle of a lunchtime crowd at a base in Khalis, 40 miles north of Baghdad. An additional 38 soldiers were injured.

“The suicide attacker must be a member of the army,” said one wounded soldier being transferred by ambulance to a hospital in nearby Baqubah. “It’s very difficult for strangers to get into the base.”

Douglas Wood, the 63-year-old Australian engineer who lives in Alamo, Calif., was freed Sunday after six weeks in captivity. Wood, who suffers from heart trouble, appeared haggard but happy, wearing a traditional Arab men’s gown, in photographs displayed at a news conference Wednesday.

Iraqi forces discovered him underneath a blanket with his hands bound in a building housing suspected insurgents. The suspects first claimed that Wood was an ailing relative, an Australian diplomat told reporters.

Iraqi officials and an army military advisor said soldiers stumbled onto Wood while conducting a routine search in Ghazaliya, a neighborhood in northwest Baghdad where insurgent sympathizers are known to live.

Soldiers also freed an Iraqi contractor held with Wood and detained three suspected insurgents. Wood was handed over to U.S. medical personnel, who examined him at Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport.

Wood has told investigators that two Iraqis kidnapped with him April 30 were moved away about a week and a half after their abduction, Australian diplomat Nick Warren said.

Wood’s rescue follows the release of French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter Saturday. As recently as a week ago, negotiators seeking Wood’s release appeared to have grown discouraged. Sheik Taj El Din Hilaly, Australia’s top Muslim cleric, left Iraq on June 10 after his meetings with Sunni Arab clerics failed to win Wood’s release.

The U.S. military and Iraqi officials touted Wood’s release as an example of how better training of Iraqi forces had yielded results.

“The Iraqi people will continue to see that the Iraqi army is capable of ensuring their security,” said Lt. Col. James Guillory, an Army advisor to the Iraqi brigade that conducted the raid.

But the infiltration of the base in Khalis and attacks elsewhere showed the continued danger of guerrilla attacks and their growing sophistication.

Insurgents have sneaked into some of the most secure areas of the country. Last year, suicide bombers launched an attack inside Baghdad’s U.S.-protected Green Zone. Last week, a bomber wearing a suicide vest attempted to kill Brig. Gen. Mohammed Qureishi, leader of Iraq’s elite Wolf Brigade commando unit.

In the Baghdad neighborhood of Zaafarania, insurgents killed a music store owner and set fire to his shop, apparently luring a group of police officers into the path of a waiting car bomber. One police officer and three bystanders were killed, and 29 people were injured, police said.

In the northern city of Tall Afar, where the U.S. led a huge raid last year to ferret out guerrillas, clashes between police and insurgents left seven Iraqis dead, including two policemen.

In Kirkuk, insurgents staged a drive-by shooting of a group of police officers, killing one. One of the guerrillas was killed in the ensuing shootout, which erupted in the city’s downtown.

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Times staff writer Suhail Ahmad in Baghdad, special correspondent Ali Windawi in Kirkuk and a special correspondent in Baqubah contributed to this report.