Blasts kill 11 in Iraq
Foreign Desk Report

BAGHDAD—A roadside bomb struck a car being driven by a police officer, killing him and his four children Sunday in northern Iraq, and attacks elsewhere killed at least seven other Iraqis and wounded more than 30 people, including five US soldiers, officials said.
Also Sunday, the US military confirmed that insurgents attacked a convoy of American contractors last month when they got lost in a town north of Baghdad, killing four and wounding two. The Sept. 20 attack in the mostly Sunni Arab town of Duluiyah was first reported on Saturday by the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.
Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a US military spokesman, told newmen that the attack occurred when the convoy, which included US soldiers in Humvees, made a wrong turn into Duluiyah and insurgents opened fire with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
The US military did not say why it had not reported the deaths earlier, but it generally relies on US government officials to report the deaths of American civilians and contractors in Iraq. Also Sunday, a roadside bomb destroyed a US military Humvee and wounded three American soldiers at 11:40 a.m in eastern Baghdad, said police 1st Lt. Belal Ali Majeed.
US Sgt. 1st Class David Abrams said roadside bombs hit three separate US convoys in central Baghdad on Sunday morning, wounding a total of five soldiers. The attacks came after a week in which 23 US troops were reported dead, raising to 1,996 the number of military personnel killed since the war began in March 2003.
In other parts of Baghdad on Sunday, a suicide car bomb hit two police vehicles at 11:30 a.m. in central Al-Tahrir Square, killing two police officers and two civilians, said police Maj. Mohammed Younis. The blast also wounded four policemen and seven civilians and damaged many shops in the area, he said. A roadside bomb exploded at 9:40 a.m. in southern Baghdad, wounding two Iraqis, police said.
In northern Iraq, a suicide car bomber rammed into a US military convoy at 9:15 a.m. in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing two civilians and wounding 13, said police Capt. Farhad Talabani. A roadside bomb hit a civilian car being driven by police Lt. Colonel Haitham Akram at 8 a.m. in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, said police 1st Lt. Udai Ahmed. The blast set the car on fire, killing Akram and his four children riding with him, Ahmed said.
A short time later, another roadside bomb exploded in Tikrit near a car carrying children to school, wounding three, said police Capt. Hakeem Al Azawi. In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, a drive-by shooting killed police 1st Lt. Falih Hassan Khalil, authorities said.
East of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of the Iraqi capital, fighting between insurgents and policemen at an intersection wounded one policeman and a civilian, said police Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed Al-Jibouri. The Daily Telegraph report about the Sept. 20 attack in Duluiyah, about 45 miles north of Baghdad, identified the casualties as employees of the Halliburton Co. subsidiary KBR, formerly known Kellogg Brown & Root.
Goldenberg, a spokesman for US Task Force Liberty forces in north-central Iraq, said he could not confirm the victims’ identities.
KBR, Halliburton’s engineering and construction subsidiary, manufactures oil and gas drill bits and technology to help energy companies maximize exploration and production efforts. The subsidiary is the largest US contractor in Iraq with more than $10 billion in work orders from the Army to support US troops and rebuild Iraq’s oil industry.
The Telegraph said two of the contractors who had not been killed in the attack were dragged alive from their vehicle and forced to kneel in the road before being killed. The paper said, “Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight.” It said, “Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man’s body to stoke the flames.” The crowd then “dragged their corpses through the street, chanting anti-US slogans,” the newspaper reported.
The Telegraph quoted US Capt. Andrew Staples, a member of a Task Force Liberty battalion that patrols the area, saying he had talked to unidentified soldiers involved in the attack. Goldenberg said he could not confirm such details since his men were not at the scene when the attack occurred. He said the contractors’ convoy was being protected by a separate division of the US military and his Task Force Liberty soldiers responded to the attack because the convoy was traveling north through their district.
“Task Force Liberty soldiers, which have a forward operating base in that area, responded to assist the convoy, administered first aid to two wounded contractors and evacuated the remains of four contractors killed,” Goldenberg said. He said the attack caused no US military casualties, but that his men, acting on a tip, returned to the area two days later to detain an individual suspected of ties to the attack and killed two insurgents after coming under fire.
Goldenberg questioned a part of the report saying the US soldiers escorting the convoy were unable to respond quickly to the attack because the hatches on their Humvees were closed. He said gunners generally keep open positions on top of such vehicles. The incident recalled a similar attack in March 2004, when a mob of Iraqis in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah killed four US security contractors, mutilated their bodies and hanged them from a bridge.