Baghdad's main Shiite shrine district hit by twin bombings; U.S. military says troop buildup near completion

Twin car bombings struck intersections near Baghdad's most revered Shiite shrine on Wednesday, killing at least seven people. The U.S. military said the buildup of some 30,000 extra American troops aimed at stopping such attacks is near completion but it could take up to two months for the newly arrived reinforcements to be fully effective.

Four more U.S. soldiers were reported killed on Wednesday, bringing the death toll for American forces closer to 3,500.

The nearly simultaneous blasts in the Kazimiyah district in northern Baghdad occurred dangerously close to the golden-domed mosque that holds the remains of the Imam Moussa Kadhim, one of the 12 major Shiite saints.

The first car exploded at al-Zahraa Square, an intersection one kilometer (a half-mile) from the shrine in an area of closely packed homes and shops that is largely controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

"We rushed over and saw people dead or injured in burning cars, and we tried to save them while waiting for the firemen and ambulances," said Hussein Alwan, the 50-year-old owner of a bakery.

That was followed within minutes by the explosion of another unoccupied car left the Aden intersection, at the western entrance to the old quarter. Police, meanwhile, found and disabled a third car bomb on a Kazimiyah shopping street, police said.

The bullet-riddled bodies of at least 47 men showing signs of torture also were found by police, 34 of them in Baghdad, the apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by Shiite militias.

The high number of such execution-style killings signaled a rise in militia violence after radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had ordered his fighters to lay low to avoid confrontations during the U.S.-security crackdown that began Feb. 14.

The militants have shown increasing impatience as the U.S. and the Iraqi military have failed to stop the suicide attacks and car bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents led by al-Qaida in Iraq despite the influx of troops and stepped up security measures.

The last of five brigades and supportive troops scheduled to reinforce U.S. troops in Baghdad and surroundings will arrive in the "next couple of weeks," but it may take up to two months for the newly arrived forces to fully establish themselves and get used to working with the Iraqis, Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner told reporters Wednesday.

"Within the next couple of weeks we will see all five brigades plus their enablers begin operating within their sectors," Bergner said at his first news conference as the chief military spokesman in Baghdad. "As we have seen with our other forces in the fight, once they're in position they make take another 30 to 60 days to fully establish themselves with their Iraqi counterparts and the people in those sectors."

The Bush administration, which has ordered some 30,000 extra U.S. troops to Iraq, has warned that the buildup will result in more U.S. casualties as American soldiers increasingly come into contact with enemy forces and concentrate on the streets of Baghdad and remote outposts.

Four U.S. soldiers were reported killed over the past two days in combat operations in Iraq _ one in a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad, one in a roadside bomb near Beiji, north of the capital, and one in an explosion in the volatile Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. Another soldier was killed Tuesday by enemy gunfire in Diyala, the military said.

The deaths raised to at least 3,498 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In other violence, an aide to Iraq's top Shiite cleric was killed in a drive-by shooting near his house in the southern holy city of Najaf. Sheik Raheem al-Hasnawi was killed late Tuesday, hours after the shooting death of a Shiite cleric from al-Sadr's office.

Nobody claimed responsibility for either attack, but it came amid rising Shiite rivalries with police who are loyal to al-Sistani often battling with militant followers of the radical al-Sadr.

Northeast of Baghdad, in several sections of the violence-wracked Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, Iraqi troops and U.S. helicopter gunships were reported attacking Sunni militants of the group al-Qaida in Iraq. A medical source said the bodies of eight gunmen were brought to the hospital. The U.S. military said it was looking into the report.

Bergner, meanwhile, announced the death of a militant identified as al-Qaida in Iraq emir "Muhammad Mahmud 'Abd Kazim Husayn al-Mashadani," also known as Abu Abdullah. Bergner said the slain suspect was part of a car bomb network and three other suspected militants were detained in the operation, which he said occurred on Tuesday.

Separately, officials of the oil workers' union threatened to stage an open-ended strike in southern Iraq if the central government doesn't meet workers' demands for better wages and working conditions.

Members of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions ended a two-day strike against the Southern Pipeline Co. on Tuesday after their representatives received assurances from local government officials in the southern city of Basra that the Baghdad government would study their demands. A longer-term strike would further cripple an oil-dependent Iraqi economy already devastated by war.