Baghdad, Iraq – Two suicide attacks and two assassinations Thursday killed at least 17 people in the Iraqi capital, where the already bloodied populace is preparing for a historic vote on a new constitution in nine days.
An American soldier also was killed when a patrol struck a roadside bomb at 8:15 a.m., the military said.
As U.S. and Iraqi officials had predicted, parts of the country have seen a surge in violence in advance of the Oct. 15 referendum on a contested constitution that would set the framework for a new government.
In the deadliest attack Thursday, a suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up inside a minibus carrying civilians and police- academy students on Palestine Street in northeast Baghdad.
Ten people, including the students, were killed and seven were wounded, according to Iraqi police Lt. Sadiq Ali Lafta, who spoke at the scene.
The attack occurred at an intersection near the police academy and the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
Ambulances and firetrucks rushed to the scene, while police vehicles surrounded the burning minibus.
Two women were killed when a suicide car-bomber struck in the morning, apparently aiming for a passing convoy of foreign contractors, witnesses said.
And unknown gunmen shot and killed Judge Munqith Faroun and two of his bodyguards in the Ameriya neighborhood of western Baghdad, according to officials in Iraq’s Interior Ministry.
The judge was on his way to work at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq when he was attacked at about 8 a.m.
Faroun, who presided over cases involving alleged insurgents, recently handed down death sentences.
Northwest of Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed Nayef Abdul Qadir, the principal of Noor High School in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood, officials said.
Just south of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, five members of the Oil Ministry special police were killed and four were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy in Othaim, said Gen. Sarhad Qadir of the Kirkuk police.
Qadir said that ensuing clashes between armed men and the police lasted for four hours and that the police “were slaughtered by the terrorists.”
Also Thursday, the Pentagon said the number of U.S. troops in Iraq has grown to 152,000 and probably will hold near that level at least through the Oct. 15 referendum on a draft constitution.
The troop total is at its highest since shortly after the January elections for an Iraqi National Assembly.
At the time, U.S. commanders increased their forces to about 160,000 in anticipation of increased insurgent violence.
For much of this year, the troop level has hovered around 138,000 to 140,000.
As recently as Sept. 2, Lt. Gen. John Vines, a senior commander in Iraq, told reporters that he expected it to remain at about 140,000 during the October referendum.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
