surge update: Rocket Attack on Green Zone Takes Rare Toll

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BAGHDAD — A rocket attack on Thursday on the Green Zone, the heavily barricaded section of this city that contains the main government buildings and the United States Embassy, killed three foreign contractors who work for the embassy, and wounded 15, including two American citizens.

Casualties are rare in the rocket and mortar attacks directed at the United States Embassy’s compound — its largest anywhere, spreading out over more than 100 acres .

The contractors, two Ugandans and one Peruvian, were part of a force that guards the embassy and other American government facilities here, according to a statement released late Thursday by the embassy. The statement said, “This cruel and senseless attack will not deter the United States from carrying out its goal of working with the Iraqi government and people to build a democratic future.”

The attack served to highlight that Iraq remains a dangerous place for Americans, though they are leaving and though the vast majority of violence here is directed at Iraqis in assassinations, roadside bombs and suicide car bombs. Violence is down sharply from its height during the sectarian civil war of 2006 and 2007, but hundreds of Iraqis still die each month.

Thursday’s overall toll amounted to a relatively calm day: an adhesive bomb blew up a pickup truck in Falluja, killing one; a policeman was killed in the turbulent northern city of Mosul when his patrol hit a roadside bomb; a cleric was killed in Mosul when a gunman opened fire. Earlier in the week an American soldier was killed after his vehicle struck a roadside bomb.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/world/middleeast/23iraq.html?_r=1&ref=global-home&pagewanted=print