Blast Kills 3 GIs in Western Iraq

Three U.S. soldiers scouring the treacherous roads of western Iraq for remote-controlled explosive devices were killed by a massive roadside bomb that destroyed their heavily protected vehicle, military officials said Saturday.

In Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi forces launched the third operation in two days targeting leaders of Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia.

And at least 10 Iraqi civilians were reported killed in political violence around the country.

The three soldiers were part of the U.S. Army 1st Armored Division’s Task Force Dagger, which sweeps major roads in Ramadi for bombs under the command of the Marines.

They were riding in a heavily armored Cougar, a vehicle designed to withstand roadside bombs and used in minesweeping operations.

The Pentagon last year ordered 122 of the minesweeping Cougars, worth a total of $87 million, from Force Protection Inc., the Ladson, S.C., firm that makes the vehicle and its spare parts.

The Cougars “feature armor-plated V-shaped bottoms designed to deflect the upward explosive power of roadside bombs,” the company’s website says.

But some Marines say they believe that, since the 1st Armored Division units moved into the area, insurgents have been placing larger roadside bombs to take out the Germany-based unit’s fleet of armored tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.

Bombs assembled in makeshift factories, then planted discreetly along roadways and detonated by remote control have become Sunni Arab insurgents’ weapon of choice in their three-year guerrilla war against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government.

American and Iraqi troops also have had to confront Shiite militiamen. In Saturday’s operation, the troops surrounded a southeastern Baghdad mosque suspected of playing host to an Al Mahdi militia leader.

An Iraqi Defense Ministry source said the U.S. and Iraqi forces withdrew from the area shortly before midnight without detaining anyone.

Political leaders in Sadr City, a Baghdad slum, announced that they were suspending their cooperation with U.S. forces and Iraqi troops after a massive raid Friday meant to capture a militia leader there.

U.S. and Iraqi officials said the leader, a well-known crime boss nicknamed Abu Daraa, had been caught in the raid, but other officials Saturday cast doubt on the account.

Another Al Mahdi militia leader was detained Friday south of the capital.

The militia leader is suspected of involvement in kidnapping-for-ransom rings as well as death squad operations against Sunni Arabs.

Elsewhere in the capital, a car bomb explosion near a Shiite mosque killed three Iraqis and injured 12, all passersby on their way to nearby shops.

A barrage of mortar shells struck an area of houses and shops in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, killing three civilians and injuring four.

Two Iraqi civilians were killed in gunfire from an insurgent attack on a U.S. convoy near the northern city of Kirkuk.

In the southern city of Basra, gunmen killed two civilians, including one working for a cellphone company.

Barnes reported from Ramadi and Daragahi from Baghdad. Special correspondents in Basra and Kirkuk contributed to this report.