Baghdad, Iraq – A surge in violence across the country killed scores of Iraqis and two American civilians Wednesday, as police said militants used this week’s downing of a U.S. helicopter to carve out a killing field north of Baghdad.
The increased bloodshed came as kidnappers freed the sister of Iraq’s interior minister after holding her hostage for two weeks, and Iraqi officials expressed hope that American hostage Jill Carroll eventually would be released.
In the most gruesome development, insurgents manning makeshift checkpoints killed about 30 people execution-style and dumped their bodies in farmland north of Baghdad, police said. The bodies of 11 others were found in the area Tuesday.
Police and eyewitnesses said that since Monday’s crash of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter that killed its two pilots near Mishahda, 25 miles north of Baghdad, American and Iraqi forces have cordoned off a large section of the main road near Dujayl.
That has forced Iraqis onto the remote, unpaved roads.
More than a dozen other Iraqis died Wednesday in attacks linked to the insurgency.
The killings marked an increase in violence as authorities prepare to announce the results this week of the Dec. 15 election.
The two American civilians were killed in a roadside bombing in the southern city of Basra. They worked for the Texas-based security company DynCorp and were training Iraqi police. A third American was seriously wounded in the attack, the U.S. Embassy said.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene said two four-wheel-drive vehicles were targeted. The area was surrounded by heavily armed British forces, whose main base in Iraq is in Basra.
The killings occurred as a joint American-Iraqi investigation was underway to find Carroll, the 28-year-old American journalist who was abducted Jan. 7 in Baghdad. The freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor was seen in a video aired Tuesday by al-Jazeera television.
Al-Jazeera said the silent 20-second video included a threat to kill Carroll in 72 hours unless U.S. authorities release all women detainees in Iraq. U.S. officials said eight women were in security detention and none had been freed as of Wednesday night.
Nevertheless, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, a deputy interior minister, spoke hopefully about prospects for Carroll’s release.
“Efforts are continuing to find the American journalist,” he said. “We cannot say more because of the sensitivity of the matter, but God willing, the end will be positive.”
President Bush ignored shouted questions Wednesday about what his administration is doing to find Carroll. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said her safe return was a priority for the administration but refused to say more “because of the sensitivity of the situation.”
