Seven U.S. soldiers killed in bombing attacks in Iraq

Six U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed when a roadside bomb detonated in a western section of the capital and a seventh American soldier was slain by a blast in the southern city of Diwaniya, the military announced Sunday.

The names of the soldiers, who died Saturday, were not immediately released. The deaths brought to 3,422 the number of American troops killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, according to the website icasualties.org. Seventy-one have been killed since the beginning of this month.

The military said the six soldiers killed in Baghdad had been working over the last week to find weapons caches and had recovered grenades, small arms, ammunition and bomb-making material. Their unit also discovered a house where militants had tortured Iraqi civilians, the military said.

It is the second time this month that six U.S. soldiers were killed in a single blast. On May 6, a Russian photographer and six Americans were killed in a roadside bombing as they traveled between Baghdad and Baqubah.

In the northern city of Irbil, a South Korean soldier was found dead Saturday in a military base barbershop. The 27-year-old first lieutenant, who had been shot, was identified only by his family name Oh, according to Multinational Forces-Iraq. South Korea has about 1,200 troops in Irbil on a reconstruction mission.

No new information emerged Sunday regarding the fate of three soldiers missing since they were captured May 12 in an ambush south of Baghdad, but military officials said the search continued with undiminished intensity.

On a different front, two of Iraq’s most powerful politicians, President Jalal Talabani and Shiite Muslim political leader Abdelaziz Hakim, suffered worsening medical conditions.

Talabani flew to the United States on Sunday for a visit that was expected to include a medical checkup. The trip came nearly three months after he was rushed to a Jordanian hospital, where doctors said he was suffering from exhaustion and dehydration caused by lung and sinus infections.

“I will go to the USA and stay nearly three weeks to lose weight and have some rest and relaxation ... away from meetings and work,” Talabani, a 73-year-old Sunni Kurd, said before boarding a plane in the city of Sulaymaniya, 175 miles northeast of Baghdad.

A senior Kurdish politician close to the Iraqi leader said Talabani was going for a checkup at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., that had been scheduled weeks before. The politician spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the president’s plans.

Hakim, who left last week to seek care in Houston, has been diagnosed with lung cancer, according to a senior official in his political party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, formerly known as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The group is the nation’s largest Shiite party and leads the ruling bloc in parliament.

“The doctors said, as I heard it, that the area affected by the cancer is not a large area. It has not spread outside the lung,” an official from the party said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The doctors suggested he get chemotherapy treatment in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran or Turkey,” the official said. “He will need to stay somewhere two to three months. He will choose somewhere in the Middle East where he can be close to his family.”

During Hakim’s absence, the leadership of the party will be shared by Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, lawmaker Humam Hamoodi, and Hakim’s son, Ammar, as well as the party’s political bureau, the official said.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi journalist working for Azzaman newspaper was found dead Sunday afternoon in western Baghdad shortly after he went missing. A car bomb detonated in a parking lot at the Interior Ministry, killing two people and injuring 10 others.

In northern Iraq, gunmen led an attack on a patrol guarding an oil pipeline near the village of Safra, 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk. The commander of the patrol was injured.

In Baghdad, 24 bodies were found in the streets, apparent victims of sectarian violence.

The U.S. military also announced the killing of Azhar Dulaimi, believed to have been involved in a January attack that took the lives of five American soldiers. Posing as Americans, guerrillas entered a U.S. compound in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, killed one soldier and abducted four others before killing them.

The military said Dulaimi was injured Friday during a raid in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City. He was found hiding on a roof and was transported to a hospital but died en route, the military said.

garrett.therolf@latimes.com

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Times staff writer Ned Parker and special correspondents in Baghdad and Kirkuk contributed to this report and the Associated Press was used in compiling it.