U.S. casualties surge amid worsening violence

Second attack on media
The motivation behind the attack was not immediately clear, but it was the second attack on a television station in the capital in as many weeks.

On Oct. 1, a parked car bomb blew up outside the local al-Rafidain TV station. The blast killed two pedestrians and wounded five station employees, while blowing out windows of the building and causing other damage to the offices.

Meanwhile, police said the family of a 29-year-old Kurdish radio reporter who was abducted a week ago had identified his body in the Baghdad morgue.

Azad Mohammed Hussein was kidnapped in northeastern Baghdad by unidentified gunmen while on his way to Dar al-Salam radio headquarters in the capital's Shaab neighborhood. His body was turned into the morgue Tuesday and identified by his family on Wednesday, police Capt. Ali al-Obaidi said.

In other violence:

• In the northern city of Kirkuk, two people were killed and two others injured when gunmen stormed inside a downtown coffee shop in the evening and opened fire on people playing dominos and backgammon, police Brig. Sarhat Qadir said.
• Also in Kirkuk, unidentified gunmen shot and killed an Iraqi soldier on his way home, Qadir said.
• Another four people were killed and eight wounded when a suicide bomber on a motorcycle ran into a police patrol in eastern Baghdad, police Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said. Two policemen were among the dead in the attack.
• Elsewhere in the city, a synchronized bomb attack killed five and wounded 11 others, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid said. First a car bomb parked in central Baghdad's Qurtaba Square exploded, followed shortly afterward by second device planted on the roadside nearby, Majid said. One policeman was among the dead. Insurgents are making increasing use of the tactic of detonating one bomb to draw attention to a spot, then a second to cause high casualties among onlookers and rescue workers.
• In a similar attack, a bomb exploded at 7 a.m. (12 a.m. ET) near a Shiite mosque in the Qahira neighborhood of northeastern Baghdad. Two minutes later another bomb exploded nearby, wounding four people who had gathered at the place of the first explosion, police 1st Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said.
• In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, a bomb attack in a residential district killed a woman and wounded six other people, police Capt. Laith Mohammed said.
• In Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, nine people were killed in four separate attacks, including the director of the provincial department for children's affairs who was shot dead by unidentified gunman with his son in their home, the provincial police said.

Bodies found
In Suwayrah, 25 miles down river from Baghdad, authorities fished four bodies out of the Tigris that showed signs of torture.

Two of the victims had their throats cut and two others had been shot, said Hadi al-Attan, an official with the Kut morgue where the bodies were taken. All were blindfolded and had their hands and legs bound, he said.

Eleven more bodies were found in the same area later, all with hands and legs bound, blindfolded and showing signs of torture, police Lt. Ali Abbas Abid said.

According to new figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry, more than 2,660 Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad in September — 400 more than the month before despite an intensified U.S.-Iraqi sweep aimed at reining in violence.

The numbers indicate how tough the vital battle to secure Baghdad has proven amid a wave of bloodshed this year, not only from Sunni Arab insurgents but also from Shiite and Sunni death squads who kidnap and kill members of the opposing sect.

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