Violence Surges as Ramadan Nears Close

At least six American troops have died around Iraq, including two Marines in the possible downing of a Cobra attack helicopter Wednesday. A suicide bomber struck at dusk in the town of Musayyib, killing at least 19 Iraqis near a mosque as the holy month of Ramadan neared its end.

A vehicle bomb also went off near the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, causing at least two deaths, and five people were killed in Baghdad when a bomb apparently intended for a police vehicle struck civilians traveling in a minibus.

The dozens of deaths came as Iraqis across the country marked the end of the Islamic month of fasting and prayer. For Sunni Muslims, the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan begins today; the festivities begin Friday for most Shiite Muslims.

Amid the violence Wednesday, Defense Minister Saadoun Dulaimi, a Sunni, renewed an invitation to former officers of ousted President Saddam Hussein’s army, up to the rank of major, to join the new army.

The move was seen as an overture to Sunni Arabs, many of whom joined the insurgency after the army was ordered dissolved by Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer III in May 2003. Many Sunnis did not respond to enlistment calls when the new army was formally instituted in August of that year.

Bremer’s move angered officers and their families. At the time, Bremer said officers could be admitted to the new army if they were loyal and had not been in the highest tier of the Baathist Party -- in practical terms those below the rank of colonel. Even then, some exceptions were allowed.

Many junior and mid-ranked officers did respond in early recruitment drives, but they were largely Shiites or Kurds.

In fighting Wednesday, Pentagon officials said an AH-1W Super Cobra crashed near Ramadi, killing its crew, but could not confirm that it was downed by hostile fire. Associated Press Television News cited an Iraqi who said he saw insurgents shoot down the helicopter.

The crash at 8:15 a.m. killed two members of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, a corps statement said. Further details were withheld pending notification of relatives, and the military said that the crash was being investigated.

In other fighting around Ramadi, a hub of the Sunni-led insurgency, a Marine and a U.S. Navy sailor were killed late Tuesday by a roadside bomb, the military reported.

In Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, a U.S. patrol came under small-arms fire Wednesday, mortally wounding a soldier and injuring another. The military said that troops responded and killed two insurgents.

A sixth American died south of Baghdad on Wednesday when a roadside bomb struck his patrol, raising to more than 2,030 the number of U.S. military personnel killed since the conflict began in March 2003.

Powerful roadside bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have been piercing armored Humvees and other military vehicles, resulting in a rise in the lethalness of recent attacks.

A source at the Iraqi Ministry of Information said the Musayyib attack involved a South Korean-built minibus that exploded in the busy main market.

The town on the Euphrates River is about 40 miles south of Baghdad in the “triangle of death,” an area that marks a frontier between predominantly Sunni Arab western Iraq and the mainly Shiite areas south of the capital.

A stubborn force of insurgents, sometimes rumored to include Jordanian-born guerrilla leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, has operated in the area since the summer of 2003, committing some of the worst attacks of the war.

In Wednesday’s attack, the minibus exploded at 4:55 p.m. as people were doing last-minute shopping for their fast-breaking celebration. Police said that 23 people died and 46 were injured. Musayyib is a mostly Shiite town, but it has a significant minority of Sunnis.

At the Teaching Hospital in Hillah, about 25 miles to the south, Dr. Abbas Taib said by telephone that 19 bodies were brought to the facility after the explosion. At least 60 people were injured and one of them was in critical condition, he said.

“All of a sudden I saw an explosion and high flames. People were falling here and there,” recounted Ahmad Ghasam, a 28-year-old laborer whose leg was mildly injured. Sounding as though still in shock, he said he had been buying vegetables and other items for iftar, the meal to break the day’s fast, when the blast occurred.

In Baghdad, where officials now count about 25 attacks daily against U.S. or Iraqi government targets or civilians, a roadside bomb exploded at 7 a.m. on the Canal highway, which runs past many government buildings. Apparently meant for a police vehicle, the blast instead struck a passing minibus, killing five people and injuring three, police said.

A possible suicide attack was thwarted in Baghdad, however, when a car bomb exploded inadvertently at a house on a side street off the main airport road where two men were thought to be preparing an attack.

The house is located behind the Um Touboul Sunni mosque, which U.S. forces once raided in search of weaponry. The explosion at 4:45 p.m., which killed both suspected bomb builders, destroyed the house and parts of neighboring homes.

U.S. and Iraqi Interior Ministry commando forces sealed off the area for investigation.

Meanwhile, a police source said an Opel Omega car exploded in the Kurdish town of Tibba, north of Kirkuk, targeting what the police source said was a U.S. diplomatic convoy. Two Iraqi civilians were killed and seven were injured in the attack, police said. No U.S. casualties were reported, and there was no immediate comment from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

In many ways, the end of Ramadan was an echo of its beginning Oct. 5, which saw the killing of 36 people when a suicide bomber struck a mosque in Hillah, causing part of the structure to collapse.

October was among the most brutal months for U.S. troops in Iraq since the American-led invasion. According to the latest reports, 96 U.S. service personnel lost their lives, and about 200 others were wounded seriously enough to be taken off duty.

Most of the insurgent attacks, however, have been against civilians. Based on recently disclosed Pentagon estimates, 26,000 Iraqi civilians were wounded or killed by insurgents from January 2004 to Sept. 16, 2005, not counting those victimized by crime or killed or wounded in U.S. operations. The Pentagon numbers are estimates based on field reports, and most of the cases are believed to involve those wounded rather than killed.

Other organizations have concluded the number of those killed is significantly higher. An antiwar group, Iraq Body Count, has said that between 26,000 and more than 30,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the war began, 11,000 in the period covered by the Pentagon’s estimate. The group says it uses news accounts corroborated by hospital figures and data collected by volunteers in Iraq.

“I have been in this profession for most of my life. But what I see now scares me to death,” said a 66-year-old Baghdad gravedigger, Haj abu Muhannad, interviewed by the Azzaman newspaper here. “Most of the bodies brought to us are killed by either firearms or explosives.”

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Asmaa Waguih of The Times’ Baghdad Bureau contributed to this report.