U.S. Reports Sharp Rise in Iraq Roadside Bombings

BAGHDAD — Warning of even more violence before December elections, a U.S. military official in Baghdad released figures Thursday showing roadside bomb attacks have risen sharply since the spring, with nearly 2,100 such blasts in the last two months alone.

There were 1,029 explosions and 96 U.S. troop deaths in October, the bloodiest month for the military since January.

In the first three days of November, at least eight U.S. service members were killed, five of them by roadside explosives, according to the military.

One soldier assigned to the 43rd Military Police Brigade was killed Thursday by a roadside bomb during combat near Baqubah, north of Baghdad, the military said. Another soldier assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, died during combat Wednesday in Ramadi, west of the capital, also killed by a roadside blast.

“We’re fighting our way to the elections,” Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a military spokesman in Iraq, said at a news conference in Baghdad, referring to the Iraqi National Assembly election in December.

“The number of operations is going to increase. The number of attacks against coalition force members, Iraqi security force members, innocent Iraqi civilians is going to increase as well,” Lynch said, “and we will continue to fight right up to the elections.”

Lynch added that U.S. and Iraqi forces were becoming more adept at detecting roadside bombs but that guerrillas were planting explosives in greater numbers than before. The insurgents also are using more sophisticated explosives and technology, he said.

There were 1,029 roadside bomb attacks in August and 1,044 in September. In the spring, the attacks numbered about 700 a month. Iraqi police officials, meanwhile, confirmed Thursday that employees at the Rustamiya sewage recycling plant in southeastern Baghdad found 11 bodies. Some had been beheaded.

At the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in early October, a group affiliated with Al Qaeda had called for increased attacks against American and Iraqi forces.

On Thursday, the group issued a string of statements, including threats to kill two Moroccan Embassy employees missing since late October. It also announced the kidnapping of political candidate Majda Yousif Sail and her husband in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood and claimed responsibility for the downing of a U.S. helicopter Wednesday in Al Anbar province that killed two Marines.

“They want to show that they still have the ability to do things of that nature,” military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said of the claim, adding that the crash was under investigation.

The group’s Internet postings, which surfaced on a website previously used by insurgents linked to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, could not be verified.

Times staff writers John Daniszewski and Suhail Ahmad contributed to this report.