BLOODY WEEKEND Attacks kill at least 23 Iraqis

Nothing was heard about the kidnapped American journalist.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at a policeman's home northeast of Baghdad on Sunday, killing his four children and his brother and raising to at least 23 the number of Iraqis killed in attacks this weekend.
Also Sunday, police found the bullet-riddled bodies of nearly two dozen men abducted last week north of Baghdad after being rejected from entry into a police academy, officials said.
The violence continued as Iraq's political parties began gearing up for talks on a new coalition government that U.S. officials hope will win the confidence of disaffected Sunni Arabs and undermine support for the insurgency. That would hasten the time when U.S. and other foreign troops can go home.
There was still no word on the fate of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll two days after a deadline set by her captors. They had threatened to kill the 28-year-old free-lancer for the Christian Science Monitor unless all Iraqi women detainees were freed.
Iraqi officials have said they expect the Americans to free six of the nine women they are holding this week. U.S. authorities have not confirmed the claim.
The attack on the policeman's home occurred in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, according to the Iraqi police Joint Coordination Center. The officer's four children, ages 6 to 11, and his brother were killed, the center said. The officer was unharmed, but his wife was wounded.
Police are targeted
Sunni-led insurgents often target police as part of their campaign to try to undermine support for the U.S.-backed government.
Four policemen were killed and nine were wounded Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in the tense city of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said. Police also said a man was gunned down at a west Baghdad gas station and another was slain in a market in the capital's Amil district.
The bodies of the 23 men were found partially buried near Dujail, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, said Interior Ministry police Lt. Thair Mahmoud. They had been abducted Wednesday while traveling from Baghdad to their homes in Samarra after failing to be accepted at a police recruit center.
Elsewhere, the bodies of prominent Sunni Arab tribal leader, Sayid Ibrahim Ali, 75, and his 28-year-old son, Ayad, were found in a field near Hawija, 150 miles north of Baghdad, police said. They were shot as they left a funeral Saturday.
In the central city of Mashru, police found the bodies of two blindfolded men who had been shot in the head and chest.
U.S. soldiers, meanwhile, killed three gunmen firing from several cars north of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, on Saturday, the military said Sunday. Six Iraqis were detained and soldiers destroyed four cars after one was found rigged for use as a car bomb. Twelve other people were reported killed in sporadic violence Saturday.
Number of attacks drops
Nevertheless, U.S. Brig. Gen. Don Alston said insurgent attacks nationwide fell 40 percent during the week ending Saturday, compared with the previous week. Attacks in Baghdad fell 80 percent for the same period, he told reporters.
The reduction in attacks occurred as security was stepped up in Baghdad and other insurgent hot spots ahead of the announcement last Friday of the results of the Dec. 15 national elections for a new parliament. An alliance of Shiite religious parties won the biggest bloc of seats but not enough to govern without partners.
U.S. officials hope the Shiite alliance, which won 128 of the 275 seats, will include a significant number of Sunni Arabs in the new coalition. Contacts are under way among the nation's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians, but the negotiations could take weeks.
Meanwhile, an Army interrogator who stuffed an uncooperative Iraqi general into a sleeping bag during questioning in northern Iraq in 2003 was convicted of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty late Saturday after a military jury in Colorado decided the general's death was not murder.
Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer Jr., 43, was on trial on allegations of killing Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a high-ranking Saddam Hussein loyalist who was believed to have been fueling the Iraqi insurgency in the Qaim area near the Syrian border. Mowhoush died while bound in the Army sleeping bag, which was part of an aggressive interrogation tactic aimed at getting the general to talk.
During the weeklong court-martial in Colorado Springs, Welshofer's supervisor, Army Maj. Jessica Voss, testified that she approved the use of the sleeping bag but was unaware that Welshofer would bind the general with a cord or straddle his chest while questioning him.
Importance of captive
Mowhoush, who the Army believed had met with Saddam after the United States invaded Iraq and who had allegedly financed insurgent attacks, was a huge catch for U.S. troops in November 2003. But several attempts over two weeks of interrogations at a facility known as the "Blacksmith Hotel" yielded little information.
According to court testimony and classified accounts of his treatment obtained by the Washington Post, Mowhoush was subjected to harsh beatings by a secret group of Iraqi paramilitaries, code-named "Scorpions," who worked with the CIA. One witness who testified behind a curtain during Welshofer's trial was accidentally identified as having worked with the CIA, and witnesses also described how Mowhoush was beaten so badly by the Iraqi natives that he had a hard time breathing and could not walk on his own.