THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The suicide car bomb and ensuing small-arms fire killed at least four Marines, and a Marine and a sailor were missing and presumed dead, the military said Saturday. At least one woman was killed, and 11 of the 13 wounded troops were female.

The relentless carnage from the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency has killed more than 1,263 people since April 28, when al-Jaafari announced his Shiite-dominated government.

In one such sectarian killing, gunmen Friday targeted an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric. Police said two bodyguards also were killed trying to protect another Shiite cleric in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite al-Amin district.

On Saturday, a suicide car bomber blew himself up outside a police officer's home north of Baghdad, killing at least nine people, police and hospital officials said. The bomber, accompanied by five cars loaded with armed insurgents, slammed into a wall outside the home of Lt. Muthana al-Shaker in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, said police Lt. Qassim Mohammed.

All those killed were on the street. Al-Shaker was not injured, Mohammed said.

Later, three mortar rounds struck a crowded cafe in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in the capital, killing five civilians and wounding seven, police said. The strike occurred at about 9 p.m., when many people are on the streets before an 11 p.m. curfew.

Elsewhere, gunmen ambushed a police patrol in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, killing eight policemen Friday, police and hospital officials said Saturday.

Gunmen killed two policemen from a commando unit patrolling western Baghdad on Saturday, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said. In addition, Iraqi police found the corpse of a uniformed policeman in another section of Baghdad, his hands bound behind his back and plastic wire around his neck, police Capt. Mohammed Izz al-Din said.

In a separate incident Saturday, gunmen killed three policemen on a road about 46 miles south of Amarah, police 1st Lt. Hussein Karim Hassan said.

// posted by montag @ 5:34 PM