U.S. pressures Iraq insurgents
Italy undeterred by losses in Nasiriya suicide bombing
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Italian soldiers guard their bombed barracks in Nasiriya on Wednesday.
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CNN's Ben Wedeman on an explosion at Italian police headquarters in Nasiriya.
CNN's Dana Bash on L. Paul Bremer's discussions on Iraq during an emergency meeting at the White House.
CNN's Jamie McIntyre on a Pentagon belief that foreign fighters with links to al Qaeda are behind attacks in Iraq.
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(CNN) -- Despite nearly a week of stepped-up offensive measures by the U.S. military against Iraqi insurgents, guerrillas were able to strike the Italian military police headquarters in Nasiriya Wednesday, killing at least 26 people.
The insurgents' attack was outside the so-called "Sunni triangle" -- the region that includes Baghdad and runs north along the Tigris River to Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit, and west along the Euphrates River in the dangerous cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Khaldiyah.
The area is home to Saddam loyalists and Baath party members and considered the most hostile to U.S. and coalition forces.
The attack came one day after a report said the CIA had predicted violence would grow across Iraq and not just within the Sunni triangle. (Full story)
It also came in the midst of an ongoing U.S. offensive to increase pressure on Iraqi insurgents in the triangle, including two attacks Wednesday against guerrillas in Baghdad and a raid Tuesday on a Baghdad school where two mortar rounds may have been fired on coalition headquarters.
Other actions over the past several days included air strikes on targets in the Tikrit area, the first aerial bombing since President Bush declared the end of major combat May 1.
The air strikes Friday and Saturday followed a bloody week that included two shootdowns of U.S. helicopters in which 22 soldiers were killed.
Former CIA director James Woolsey told CNN that despite the violence outside the Sunni triangle the war remained focused within it.
"One of the generals, I think, said yesterday that over 90 percent of the attacks that occurred in the country, including those outside the Sunni triangle, are coming from within that Sunni triangle," Woolsey said. "It's there that I think they really have to win the war."
Italy not deterred by attacks
Italian officials said the attack on Italian military police headquarters that killed at least 18 Italians and eight Iraqis would not deter their country's commitment to helping form a new Iraqi government.
Officials said 12 of the dead were Italian Carabinieri, or paramilitary police, four were other soldiers and two were Italian civilians filming a documentary on the Italian military in Iraq.
Iraqi hospital sources said eight Iraqis were killed. Italian news media said four suicide bombers died.
British spokeswoman Lt. Katherine MacIntosh said 21 Italians were wounded and 12 Iraqis were wounded or missing. The British are leading a multinational division in southern Iraq.
A truck, followed by a sedan, barreled through the Italian compound's gate, and one of them exploded, coalition officials said.
The car was carrying a detonator, but it wasn't clear whether that vehicle, the truck or both were packed with explosives, officials said. The Pentagon described the bombing as a coordinated attack involving 10 people.
The blast leveled the building, and Italian defense officials said they expected the death toll to rise because some people were reportedly trapped under rubble.
It was the deadliest attack against Italian military personnel since World War II and the first on the Italian contingent since May 1. The Italian Ministry of Defense said about 2,500 Italians are stationed in the country.
"No intimidation will budge us from our willingness to help that country rise up again and rebuild itself with self-government, security and freedom," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in a statement. (Berlusconi defiant about Iraq)
Bush offered U.S. condolences for the Italian deaths. "We appreciate their sacrifice," he said. "I appreciate the steadfast leadership of Prime Minister Berlusconi, who refused to yield in the face of terror."
U.S. blasts guerrillas
In Baghdad, meanwhile, the U.S. Army launched two attacks on Iraqi insurgents in the western and southern sections of Iraqi capital, said Capt. David Gercken, a spokesman for the U.S. 1st Armored Division.
The attack in the western part targeted guerrillas who fired mortar rounds at American troops around 8:30 p.m. (12:30 p.m. EST). No U.S. troops were wounded, Gercken said.
Troops observed the insurgents trying to escape in a van and pursued it in Humvees and a helicopter. The van outdistanced the Humvees, but the helicopter observed it stopping at several places as it headed west out of the city.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi takes a moment while addressing parliament in Rome after the attack on the Italian military police compound in Iraq.
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At that point Apache helicopters were called in, striking the van and killing two people inside, Gercken said. Three others were wounded and five were detained, he said.
Troops searched the areas where the van was seen stopping and recovered a mortar tube, Gercken said.
In the attack in southern Baghdad, an AC-130 Spectre gunship was called in to hit a warehouse that intelligence indicated was used by Iraqi insurgents to meet and plan attacks against U.S. forces, Gercken said. The number of casualties was not immediately known, as was a damage assessment.
The strike was prompted by a mortar attack on 82nd Airborne Division soldiers Tuesday night. U.S. troops chased the guerrillas until they took shelter in the warehouse grounds.
Forty U.S. troops have died this month, bringing the number of Americans killed in the Iraq war to 400. Since May 1, 261 U.S. servicemen and women have been killed.
There is no reliable source for Iraqi civilian or combatant casualty figures, either during the period of major combat or after May 1.
The Associated Press reported an estimated 3,240 civilian Iraqi deaths between March 20 and April 20, but the AP said that the figure was based on records of only half of Iraq's hospitals, and the actual number was thought to be significantly higher.
Talks on Iraq conclude
On a hastily arranged trip to Washington, L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, concluded talks Wednesday at the White House and will head back to Iraq. Bremer attended a National Security Council meeting Wednesday presided over by the president. (Full story)
U.S. officials in Washington and military commanders in Iraq have voiced concern about the recent increase of attacks against coalition and other targets in Iraq and have urged the council to speed up the timeline for a political transition.
Other developments
• Coalition forces opened fire Wednesday at a vehicle carrying Iraqi Governing Council member Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum in Baghdad, according to sources within the council. Sources said the gunfire resulted after an apparent miscommunication between the car's occupants and soldiers guarding a gate outside the "Green Zone," an area that houses the U.S.-led coalition's headquarters. An unidentified person in the car was wounded, sources said. Al-Ulum appeared to be uninjured when he later attended a council meeting.
• U.S. forces have detained a man suspected of shooting down a Black Hawk helicopter Friday near Saddam Hussein's ancestral homeland of Tikrit and killing six American soldiers onboard, said 4th Infantry Division sources. Acting on information from local Iraqis, some 200 4th Infantry troops launched four overnight raids in east Tikrit and the nearby town of al-Alam, netting 36 suspects -- including the man suspected of shooting down the Black Hawk. Also arrested were five of the man's alleged accomplices, the sources said.
CNN's Matthew Chance, Paul Courson, John King, Kathleen Koch, Hada Messia, Mike Mount, Nic Robertson, Pelin Sidki, Alessio Vinci and Ben Wedeman contributed to this report.
Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
