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Bush: U.S. ready for new attacks in Iraq

Woman bomber kills 5 in Tal Afar

• Blair defies calls to leave Iraq

• Al Qaeda: 'Leave or die'

• Abu Ghraib figure gets 3 years

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- President Bush predicted Wednesday that insurgents would launch a new wave of attacks aimed at disrupting upcoming Iraqi elections, but he said that "our troops are ready for it."

"The terrorists will fail. See, the Iraqis want to be free. They proved that last January when over 8 million citizens, in the face of violence and threats voted," Bush said. "The terrorists are going to fail this time, but we can expect they'll do everything in their power to try to stop the march of freedom."

Bush spoke Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden after a meeting with Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, and Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command. (Bush discusses Iraq gains -- 7:59)

Bush said the two leaders would brief members of Congress on recent gains in Iraq. (Full story)

He also hailed the killing Tuesday of al Qaeda in Iraq's No. 2 operative, calling him a "brutal killer," who was responsible for the recent upswing in attacks.

Abu Azzam was killed early Sunday in Baghdad. (Full story)

Bush said that Iraqi security forces were getting stronger and actually outnumbered U.S. troops involved in an operation to root out insurgents in the town of Tal Afar.

The U.S. military says it was able to kill or capture hundreds of militants during an offensive there this month.

Bush said that U.S. forces have been able to count on Iraqi forces to hold the city after the insurgents were driven out.

In Tal Afar on Wednesday, a female suicide bomber killed five people and wounded 30 outside a center where residents had gathered seeking compensation after the recent offensive in the city, a senior Iraqi military source said.

The woman detonated her explosive vest about 10 a.m. (2 a.m. ET), when she was not allowed to enter the building, officials said.

It was the first known suicide attack by a woman during the Iraq insurgency. Women carried out at least one suicide attack before the fall of Baghdad, The Associated Press reported.

Task Force Freedom said on Tuesday that "more than 500 claims have been processed since September 19, paying out more than $175,000," as part of an effort to repair Tal Afar and bring back more than 5,000 residents who fled the fighting.

Meanwhile, a U.S. military patrol on the outskirts of Haqlaniya came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

In the ensuing firefight, five suspected insurgents were killed and one vehicle was destroyed, officials said.

Haqlaniya is in western Anbar province close to the Euphrates River, and the train station near where the attack occurred has been the location of frequent attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Nine people shot in head

Elsewhere, the bodies of nine people were found shot to death Wednesday in Baghdad and Baquba, emergency police sources told CNN.

Seven bodies were found in the Shula neighborhood of northwest Baghdad.

Each was shot once in the head and their hands were injured as though they had been tied up. Their eyes appeared to have been taped shut.

Two bodies were also found in Baquba, north of Baghdad in Diyala province. They were killed in similar fashion, but the two incidents do not appear to have been related.

On Tuesday, the bodies of 22 men were found in southern Iraq. They had been shot in the head with their hands tied, police in Baghdad said.

The men may have been tortured, police said. The bodies were discovered in Jassan, a town in Wasit province near the border with Iran.

Fleeing Samarra

In Samarra, several hundred residents were fleeing their homes because of fears that U.S. and Iraqi forces will launch an offensive against insurgents there, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

A news release said citizens are reporting a buildup of Iraqi and U.S. forces in Salaheddin province -- the same province where Saddam Hussein was born.

The statement, dated Tuesday, quotes an Interior Ministry official, Ahmed Diar, as saying the province "has been another worrying spot of insurgency in Iraq and we should have control over it to give security and comfort to Iraqis, but we do not have a certain date for operations and people should await our announcement to leave."

The statement said "local residents in the city said insurgents could be seen walking freely carrying machine guns, forcing them to barricade themselves inside their houses."

Other developments

At least three U.S. service members were killed and one was wounded on Wednesday in two separate roadside bombings that occurred 45 minutes apart near Safwan -- a town close to Iraq's border with Kuwait, the U.S. military said. The attacks bring the U.S. troop death toll in Iraq to 1,931.

A suicide car bomb attack in Baquba on Wednesday killed a police officer and wounded 13 others, police sources told CNN. The attack took place at a police checkpoint in the central part of the city about 4 p.m. local time. On Tuesday, a man wearing a vest with explosives detonated himself at an Iraqi police recruitment center in Baquba, killing nine recruits and wounding 23 others, police said.

Iraq police in Najaf said they believe a bomb was under construction when it detonated inside a home Wednesday night. The home belonged to a bodyguard of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Two men were killed, and women and children were among the eight wounded, a police official told CNN.

The head of the office of the governor of Salah al-Deen, a Sunni province north of Baghdad, was killed along with his driver Wednesday near Tikrit, an Iraqi police official said.

CNN's Enes Dulami, Kevin Flower, Kianne Sadeq and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

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