Baghdad, Iraq ? Soldiers arrested 18 people in a deadly missile barrage last month that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz narrowly escaped, officials said Sunday. U.S. warplanes bombed near a center of Iraqi resistance, and the military said it was intensifying the fight against insurgents after increasingly bloody attacks.

The U.S. command also announced the death of another soldier, Army Staff Sgt. Mark D. Vasquez, stationed with the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kan., who was killed late Saturday when his vehicle struck a land mine in Baghdad. A senior Iraqi official warned that mounting violence may delay steps toward a new constitution, considered a major condition for returning the country to full Iraqi rule.

Lt. Col. George Krivo, spokesman for the U.S. command, said the 18 suspects were arrested in Baghdad by the 1st Armored Division but gave no further details. The missile attack Oct. 27 against the Al-Rasheed Hotel killed a U.S. colonel and injured 18 others.

Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq war, was staying in the hotel but escaped injury. The barrage was part of a series of escalated attacks over the past two weeks, including the downing of a Chinook helicopter Nov. 2 in Fallujah in which 16 soldiers were killed and 21 injured.

The downing of the Chinook and the crash Friday of a Black Hawk helicopter in Tikrit made the first week of November the bloodiest for American forces since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1.

Deadly month

With the start of the holy month of Ramadan on Oct. 27 in Iraq, U.S. forces lifted curfews in Baghdad and Tikrit and scaled down nighttime raids to avoid angering ordinary Iraqis at a time of heightened religious sentiment.

But after the wave of attacks that began around the start of Ramadan, the military now appears to be returning to a more robust operation.

Aggressive response

The military has launched a new, massive response tactic aimed at taking the fight to the insurgents, officials said. Krivo said there was a “new focus” in the north and west of Baghdad to find areas where Saddam loyalists “and other noncompliant forces are operating.”

Army Staff Sgt. Mark D. Vasquez, stationed with the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kan., is shown with his daughter, Breanna, in a family handout photo from 1998. Vasquez, of Port Huron, Mich., was killed Saturday in Fallujah, Iraq, while on patrol in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle when it was struck by an explosive device.

“We have picked up the intensity of our offensive operations and this is specifically manifested with the larger numbers of troops in the 82nd Airborne and other forces to the west,” Krivo said, without giving details on the numbers of troops.

“We are on offensive operations,” a U.S. officer said on condition of anonymity. “You can expect to see an increase in the level of intensity and the amount of activity that is occurring, especially in those ‘challenging’ areas.”

“Part of warfare is coercion and affecting the hearts and minds of the enemy and certainly a show of force is a tool that can be used by commander,” the official said.

Heavy bombing

As part of the new tactic, U.S. jets dropped three 500-pound bombs in the Tikrit area and blasted at least three buildings early Saturday after the Black Hawk crashed — apparently due to hostile fire.

Late Saturday, U.S. F-16 jets dropped three 500-pound bombs in the Fallujah area after a series of ambushes wounded three paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, the military said.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, three mortars exploded late Sunday in Baghdad’s Karrada district, damaging a house but causing no injuries, police said.