Suicide bomber kills 7 Marines

3 Iraqi Guardsmen also die in deadliest attack on U.S. troops since April

Baghdad, Iraq ? A suicide car-bomber struck a military convoy near the city of Fallujah on Monday, killing seven Marines in the deadliest attack on U.S. forces since April.

Three members of the Iraqi National Guard also were killed during the bombing outside Fallujah, in the Muslim region that has become a flashpoint during Iraq’s 16-month-old insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation.

The seven fatalities are the largest number of U.S. troops killed in a single attack since April 29, when eight soldiers died in another car-bomb attack. That assault was in an area south of Baghdad that also has become hub for insurgent activities, including roadside attacks and kidnappings.

The Marines were members of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, from Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The U.S. military pulled back from Fallujah in April, after surrounding the city and engaging in days of bloody clashes. American officials agreed to put an Iraqi force, called the Fallujah Brigade, in control of security inside the city, which is 30 miles west of Baghdad.

But that group has not worked out as planned and is widely believed to be acting in concert with the insurgency, which is made up of foreign and local Islamic militants and fighters loyal to Saddam Hussein. Since pulling back, U.S. forces have carried out regular air strikes against suspected militant hide-outs in Fallujah.

A major concern among U.S. military leaders is that Fallujah has become a launching pad for a wide range of insurgent activities, especially car bombings, which have grown in number and sophistication.

Insurgents also have carried out numerous kidnappings and killings of civilian foreigners in the area, known as the Sunni Triangle, that surrounds Fallujah. Persistent violence in Fallujah and a few other trouble zones already is prompting authorities to consider excluding them from voting when Iraq holds landmark elections scheduled for January.

Death toll still rising

As of Monday, 990 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count based on Defense Department records and AP reporting from Iraq.The Defense Department’s most recent published count, as of Friday, shows 976 U.S. service members dead. Of those, 730 died as a result of hostile action and 246 died of nonhostile causes.The AP count of 990 includes five additional names released by the Defense Department plus nine fatalities since Friday who have not been identified.

The latest deaths brought the unofficial tally of the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the start of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to about 990. Fifteen servicemen have died during the first six days of September.

A day earlier, two U.S. Army soldiers were killed and 16 injured during a mortar attack on a military base near Baghdad.

The American military said Monday that U.S.-led troops and Iraqi National Guard forces were continuing to conduct joint operations in the outskirts of Fallujah.

“Our forces will continue to stay the course in order to ensure Iraqi security forces have everything necessary to set the conditions required to foster rule of law and revitalization of Iraq,” said a statement issued by the military.

In addition to the car bombing, U.S. officials said three bombing attacks targeted American-led forces in eastern Baghdad during a one-hour period on Monday morning. Three soldiers were wounded in one of those attacks in eastern Baghdad

Official not captured

Meanwhile, Iraqi government officials announced that a man detained by authorities a day earlier was not Izzat Ibrahim, a onetime aide to Saddam who is the highest-ranking official from the toppled regime to remain free.

A spokesman for Iraq’s interior ministry said that after more investigation, officials had determined that the man being held was not Ibrahim, who ranks sixth on the U.S. most-wanted and appears on the king of clubs in the deck of cards listing fugitives from the former regime.

The man, not publicly named, was a relative of Ibrahim who also was wanted by authorities on unspecified charges, said the spokesman, Sabah Kadhim.

“The person that was arrested was not Izzat (Ibrahim),” Kadhim said.

The reported arrest had spawned wildly conflicting official assertions and considerable confusion. Several senior officials had insisted that Ibrahim was seized during a raid at a medical clinic in the northern city of Tikrit, while others, including the defense minister, characterized the claims as baseless.

Deadline set on captives

In other developments, the group that kidnapped two French journalists last month issued fresh demands for their release, including a $5 million ransom.

In a declaration posted on an Islamic Web site, the Islamic Army in Iraq also demanded that France agree to a truce with Osama bin Laden and vow not to take part in military operations or commerce in Iraq.

The statement set a 48-hour deadline. It could not be immediately determined whether the statement was authentic.

The journalists — Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro and Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale — were captured Aug. 20 south of Baghdad. An Italian journalist, Enzo Baldoni, was seized last month in the same area and later killed. He also was seized by the Islamic Army.