IRAQ 19 Iraqi soldiers killed when attackers set off bomb, fire grenades

The violence seems to be picking up prior to the Dec. 15 elections.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents killed 19 Iraqi soldiers and wounded four in a coordinated ambush northeast of Baghdad just two days after the deadliest attack against U.S. Marines in four months.
The bloodshed Saturday confirmed U.S. and Iraqi warnings of a surge in insurgent attacks ahead of national elections set for Dec. 15. A total of 14 U.S. service members have died this month, 10 of them in a bombing Thursday near Fallujah.
Saturday's attack occurred as an Iraqi army unit patrolled near Adhaim, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. Survivors said insurgents triggered a roadside bomb and then showered the patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire.
President Bush said earlier this week that the eventual replacement of U.S. troops by Iraqi forces was key to his strategy for victory.
The U.S. command has released few details about the Thursday bombing that killed 10 members of the Marines' Regimental Combat Team 8.
A witness said it occurred at a mill in the village of Amiriyat al Fallujah, just outside the city.
"More than 20 troops entered there and a huge explosion happened," said the witness, Mohsen Mohammed. "Afterward, the helicopters and tanks arrived in the area."
What was shown
Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape Saturday from the Islamic Army of Iraq showing an explosion targeting a U.S. foot patrol near Fallujah. The tape did not directly link the explosion to Thursday's attack, but the Al-Jazeera announcer noted the Marine deaths as the tape aired.
The grainy video, filmed through a long lens, showed ground troops walking down a street on both sides of a humvee when a huge fireball engulfed the area, sending terrified Iraqi bystanders scrambling for their lives.
Al-Jazeera said the Islamic Army, one of Iraq's best-known insurgent groups, claimed responsibility for a series of other attacks against U.S. forces north of Baghdad, in Nasiriyah and another in Fallujah.
Hoping for Sunni support
The United States hopes a big Sunni turnout in the Dec. 15 elections will produce a government that can win the trust of the minority Sunnis, the backbone of the insurgency. Along with creating a stronger Iraqi military, many hope that will hasten the day when U.S. troops can leave.
In a separate incident, the U.S. base at the airport in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, came under fire Saturday, wounding two American soldiers, the U.S. military said.
And in a sign of continuing tensions among Iraqi factions, the spokesman for the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said his organization may reconsider its participation in a national reconciliation process because of continued killings of Sunnis by Shiite extremists.
"What is happening today means crushing and killing this initiative," Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi said.
Aides to the top cleric of Iraq's Shiite majority said Saturday that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is signaling to his followers that they should vote for the Shiite alliance in the upcoming election.
Al-Sistani stopped receiving Shiite politicians and candidates weeks ago in a sign of displeasure over the Shiite-led government's performance. However, aides said the cleric is telling people to vote for the Shiite alliance to "preserve Iraq's unity" and "protect Iraqis."
Also Saturday, a leading member of the British anti-war movement, Anas Altikriti, arrived in Iraq to try to win the release of the four Christian peace activists taken hostages last week.
Altikriti told the British Broadcasting Corp., that he would meet with various Iraqi organizations in hopes one of them might have contacts with the kidnappers.