21 Iraqis, 2 GIs killed in attacks

Guerrillas have shot dead 17 Iraqis working for the US army and killed a National Guard commander and three bodyguards in attacks north of Baghdad that take the toll from three days of violence to more than 70.

Insurgents have launched a series of attacks in Sunni areas since Friday, mainly targeting Iraqi security forces and civilians working with the US military.

Two US soldiers were also killed and four wounded in an attack on their patrol in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the US military said.

At least 17 civilians working for a US contractor were killed and 13 others wounded when they were ambushed on their way to work in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, said US Captain Bill Coppernoll.

Insurgents in two pickups opened fire on civilian buses as they stopped to let the workers, who were employed by a US firm charged with destroying ammunition from Saddam's former regime at arms dumps just north of Tikrit.

The area was secured by US and Iraqi forces and the wounded taken to Tikrit hospital

About an hour later, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle beside a National Guard convoy in the rebel stronghold of Baiji, north of Tikrit, killing local National Guard commander Mohammed Jassim Rumaied and three of his bodyguards, colleagues said.

The US military said 18 were also wounded when insurgents set off the car bomb and opened fire with small arms on a checkpoint near the town. The area was sealed off and civilians were evacuated to a nearby US base.

In Samarra, south of Tikrit, one Iraqi soldier was killed and four were wounded when insurgents attacked their patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, said Coppernoll.

The US soldiers from Task Force Olympia were shot dead during an attack on their patrol in Mosul, 370km north of Baghdad on Saturday afternoon, the military said.

US forces have been conducting intensified operations in Mosul since coordinated attacks by insurgents on the city's police stations prompted most of the force to quit on November 11.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Kurdish peshmerga fighters in the city of Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, killing 16 people, Kurdish officials said. The peshmerga have been helping secure Mosul since most of the city's police fled after an insurgent onslaught last month.

Two suicide bombers also struck at a police station just outside the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on Saturday, killing seven people and wounding more than 50.

ELECTION FEARS
Over the past year, US authorities have invested heavily in recruiting and training police and the military-style National Guard, only to see large numbers desert or not turn up to work in the face of insurgent intimidation.

The US military hopes to be able to hand over national security to Iraqi forces before the elections, and Iraqi officials say only Iraqi forces will be involved in securing polling booths, with US-led troops keeping their distance.

But insurgents still dominate several Sunni areas of Iraq, and the Pentagon has announced it will deploy an additional 12,000 US troops in coming weeks for election security, boosting troop numbers to 150,000, their highest level yet.

Many among Iraq's 20 percent Sunni Arab minority -- from which the insurgency draws the core of its support -- have called for a delay in the elections, saying that violence in Sunni areas will prevent the polls being free and fair.

Sunni Arabs, who dominated Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule, fear they will be marginalised in the new Iraq, as the 60 percent Shi'ite majority exercises its new political clout.

Shias insist the elections should go ahead on time and that any delay would be a surrender to terrorism.

Lakhdar Brahimi, former UN special envoy to Iraq and the architect of January's electoral process, told a Dutch newspaper on Saturday the elections should not go ahead if the current violent environment persists.

"Elections are no magic potion, but part of a political process. They must be prepared well and take place at the right time to produce the good effects that you expect from them," Brahimi told NRC Handelsblad.

Asked if it was possible to hold elections as conditions are now, Brahimi said: "If the circumstances stay as they are, I personally don't think so." (AFP/REUTERS)