Roadside Bomb Kills Five Marines in Iraq By FRANK GRIFFITHS, Associated Press Writer



BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb attack killed five U.S. Marines, and gunfire killed an American sailor in a western Iraqi town, the U.S. military said Thursday.


The U.S. deaths came amid an upsurge in violence appeared to be aimed at derailing stepped up efforts by Shiite politicians to bring the disaffected Sunni Arab minority into the political process.

The Marines died Wednesday after their vehicle was attacked near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. Officials in Ramadi had reported a roadside bomb blast in the pre-dawn hours.

A sailor attached to the Marines' unit, the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, was also killed Wednesday in Ramadi by gunfire, the military said.

The six U.S. deaths raised Wednesday's toll from insurgent attacks to 58 killed, making it the deadliest day of violence in more than a month.

At least 1,714 U.S. military members have died since the war began in 2003, according to an AP count.

Meanwhile, a judge and his bodyguard were killed Thursday morning in an eastern Mosul neighborhood where many residents support the now-banned Baath Party of toppled President Saddam Hussein, officials said.

Six masked gunmen in two cars blocked the road and sprayed the judge's car with machine-gun fire, said Mosul court Judge Abdul al-Hassaniani and Dr. Bahaa al-Din al-Bakri of the city's hospital. The officials identified the dead judge as Salim Mahmoud al-Haj Ali. Mosul is 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Police found the bodies of 11 people in two towns in the so-called Triangle of Death on Thursday, an official said. The corpses of five family members were discovered at a farm in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Muthana Khalid, a police spokesman.

A group of armed men wearing police uniforms broke into the family's house Wednesday and pretended to arrest them and later killed them, Khalid said. There were signs of torture on the bodies, he said.

The remains of six other people were found in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Khalid said. Gunmen used the bodies as a trap to ambush arriving officers and engaged police in a fire fight, he said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Iraqi legislators, meanwhile, seemed close to agreement on a demand by Sunni Arabs for more participation in the effort to draft a constitution.

A Shiite-dominated parliamentary committee drafting Iraq's new constitution offered a compromise to the country's Sunni Arab minority in an effort to break a deadlock over demands they have a bigger say in drawing up the charter.

The offer suggested that 13 additional Sunni Arabs join the committee in a parallel body. The head of a major Sunni religious organization and a spokesman for the community's largest political party rejected committee chairman Hummam Hammoudi's offer.

The Sunni Arab community has said it wants 25 more people to join their two legislators already on the committee. Representatives from the 55-member committee and the Sunni Arab community were scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss the proposal.

An agreement on the constitution would help defuse growing sectarian tension between the majority Shiites, who control the government, and the Sunnis. The minority is thought to make up the core of an insurgency that has killed at least 1,080 people since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's government was announced April 28.

The surge in attacks appeared aimed at derailing efforts by Shiite and Kurdish politicians to bring the disaffected Sunni Arab minority into the political process, particularly the drafting of the new constitution. The new charter must be approved by parliament by mid-August and put to a nationwide vote two months later. If passed, it will be the basis for a new election in December.

A car bomb exploded early Thursday in northern Baghdad, injuring five Iraqi soldiers, police Capt. Ahmed al-Nedawi said. The car was parked on a street and detonated by remote control, he said.