Baghdad, Iraq ? Iraq’s prime minister promised Tuesday to release 2,500 prisoners and to press ahead with a security plan aimed at ending sectarian violence as he sought to quell public anger over a series of brazen attacks.

His comments came a day after the abductions of 50 people in downtown Baghdad by gunmen wearing police uniforms and the shooting deaths of 21 Shiites north of the capital, including students pulled from their minivans.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed a desire by insurgents to cripple the political process for the spike in violence since he took office just over two weeks ago.

They “have increased their bloody operations to derail and bring down the national unity government, but, God willing, they will lose,” he told reporters.

Hours after he spoke, a parked car bomb exploded outside a Shiite funeral ceremony in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least four people and wounding 20. Gunmen also killed one student, wounded another and kidnapped three at Baghdad University’s business school.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, reported an American soldier was killed in Baghdad on Monday when a bomb struck his convoy.

Underlining the toll of Iraq’s bloodshed, the Health Ministry said that during the first five months of this year, Baghdad’s main morgue had received 6,000 bodies, most of whom had died violently.

In an apparent effort to appease anger in the Sunni Arab minority over allegations of random detentions and mistreatment of prisoners, al-Maliki said 2,500 Iraqi detainees would be freed from U.S. and Iraqi-run jails to promote “reconciliation and national dialogue.”

The first batch of about 500 detainees will be released today and others will follow after their cases are reviewed, he said.

But the Shiite prime minister stressed that the release plan excludes loyalists of ousted leader Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-dominated Baath Party as well as “terrorists whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people.”

The Sunni Arab minority provides the backbone of the insurgency that has kept Iraq in chaos.