20 Iraqis die in suicide attacks

Efforts to improve security in Al Anbar province, long the primary stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency, suffered a setback Thursday when suicide bombers detonated explosives at a police recruitment center in Fallouja and a police station in Ramadi. At least 20 people were killed and 31 injured, police and witnesses said.

Meanwhile, American military officials reported the deaths of three more U.S. soldiers, two killed Wednesday in a roadside bombing in Baghdad and one who died of wounds from an explosion Tuesday northwest of the capital. The deaths of 227 soldiers have been reported for April and May, the deadliest two-month period since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The suicide attacks in Al Anbar were the latest in a steady series against the followers of tribal sheiks who have spurned Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents and are cooperating with the government. Last week, a Fallouja tribal leader was slain and his funeral procession the next day was bombed, killing 30 mourners.

The number of police recruits in the province has risen rapidly in the last year, from the low hundreds in each city to the thousands today, military officials said. The trend has offered a beacon of hope in an area with few essential services.

“Today’s incident is absolutely another indication of the brutal people in the Qaeda organization,” military spokesman Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said. “They are trying to drive a wedge between the people and the security forces.”

The U.S. military, Iraqi army and police were running the recruitment center with members of the Anbar Salvation Council, the coalition of Sunni tribes opposed to foreign Islamist militants.

A Fallouja police source and a witness, who both declined to be named for security reasons, said the explosion occurred about 10:30 a.m. when a man wearing an explosives vest reached an area near cadets and police recruiters. The attack in Ramadi was carried out by a truck bomber, witnesses said.

The police officer in Fallouja attributed the incidents to the desperation of local members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, as the group builds strongholds elsewhere in the country, especially in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.

“They are rapidly losing ground in Anbar and have been pushed out gradually, now there are only a few elements remaining, mostly in Fallouja,” the officer said.

The Iraqi Ministry of Health, meanwhile, released May figures that showed a steep uptick in the number of civilians killed.

In Baghdad, the search for five Britons abducted Tuesday angered residents in the Shiite Muslim stronghold of Sadr City, and U.S. and Iraqi troops battled militants in a Sunni neighborhood.

The search for computer consultant Peter Moore and his four bodyguards appeared to be focused on Sadr City, where the kidnappers are believed to have fled. The district is home base for radical cleric Muqtada Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia.

The U.S. military would not confirm that raids in the district were related to the search, but residents said scores of troops descended there for a second day, seeking information about the men. Many complained of heavy-handed tactics.

Maan Fakhir Musawi, a retired government employee, said 30 U.S. soldiers stormed his home and arrested his two sons after discovering several thousand dollars and two assault rifles -- standard articles in many Iraqi households.

“My sons have nothing to do with any group or any political side. The American troops arrested them after they beat them and kicked them,” Musawi said. “We are dispirited and hopeless because of this feeble Iraqi government. What government is this if it doesn’t know what American troops are doing without its permission?”

Finance Minister Bayan Jabr acknowledged that security at the ministry’s satellite facility where the kidnappings took place was insufficient.

In the Sunni district of Amariya, a violent clash erupted after militants with the Islamic State of Iraq prevented students from taking their final exams, shooting randomly and forcing residents to stay inside, police said.

U.S. and Iraqi security forces responded with ground troops and helicopter gunships, pummeling the district for hours, police said.

A man who identified himself as Abu Ibrahim, a 40-year-old former colonel in the Iraqi army now with the Islamic militant group, said he participated in the clashes against U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

“Our ultimate objective,” he said, “is to reach a compromise with the occupation, which we recognize, as opposed to the so-called Iraqi government, which we don’t want to do anything with. Once we reach an agreement with the occupation and a timetable for their withdrawal, we will organize a national conference of the resistance in order to decide the future of Iraq.”

At least 743 unidentified bodies were recovered in the capital in May, including 29 on Thursday, the highest monthly toll since a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown began in February.

The number is seen as an indicator of the activity of sectarian death squads. There were 531 bodies found in February, 542 in March and 440 in April, according to a Times count. The current level is still lower than in January, when police reported the discovery of 830 bodies.

When all acts of violence are considered, including sectarian killings and bombings, 1,949 Iraqi civilians died in May, and 2,023 Iraqi civilians were injured, the Ministry of Health said.

One of the dead was an Associated Press cameraman who was shot twice and killed in Baghdad while walking to a mosque near his home Thursday, his day off.

Saif M. Fakhry, 26, was the news agency’s fifth employee to die violently in the Iraq war and the third since December.

The Interior Ministry reported that 127 policemen and officers were killed over the month and that 216 were injured.

The Defense Ministry reported that 47 Iraqi soldiers and officers were killed and 63 were injured.

Two hundred ninety-seven suspected terrorists were killed in May, and 2,356 suspects were detained, the government said.

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garrett.therolf@latimes.com

Times staff writers Saif Hameed, Said Rifai and Alexandra Zavis and special correspondents in Fallouja and Baghdad contributed to this report.