Death toll in Iraq blasts at 101

IRBIL, Iraq -- A video camera captured images of a man shaking hands with a Kurdish official seconds before blowing himself up in one of the two suicide bombings during holiday celebrations. The death toll soared to 101, the U.S.-led coalition said Tuesday.\nMeanwhile Tuesday, an American soldier was killed and a second was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded during an operation to clear such weapons, the U.S. military said. The explosion occurred near Iskandariyah, 35 miles south Baghdad, the statement said.\nKurds blamed Ansar al-Islam, a militant group allegedly linked to al Qaeda, for the weekend attacks.\nThe video shows the suicide bomber mingling with hundreds of well-wishers greeting officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, on Sunday, the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. A second attacker slipped into a gathering of the Kurdish Democratic Party across town.\nIn Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Tuesday the U.S. investigation has not determined who was behind the Sunday attack, although he said it could have been carried out by Ansar al-Islam or al Qaeda.\nKimmitt also said there were an average of 23 engagements a day between U.S. soldiers and Iraqi insurgents over the past week, compared with 18 the week before.\nOn Monday, the two main Kurdish parties -- both U.S. allies but often at odds with each other -- held a joint memorial at the largest mosque in Irbil, the heartland of the Kurdish self-rule region.\nThe PUK video shows only the back of the bomber's head as he joined the line. The man, apparently in his 20s or 30s, shook hands with one of the Irbil office's deputy chiefs, then stepped forward and put his hand in that of another, Shakhwan Abbas.\n"That's when he blew himself up," said Azad Jundiyani, head of the PUK's media department.\nU.S. military officials said Tuesday that 101 people were killed in the two blasts, up from 67 deaths reported earlier.\nMuch of the evidence of the bombing had been removed from the KDP site by Monday. What remained was dried blood on the floors and walls, yellow prayer beads, a bloodstained telephone book, candies strewn on the floor, and pieces of clothes, among other things.\n"I can only say that it's very painful to see all this," said Hoger Nader, a KDP militiaman. "I feel the blast broke our backs and destroyed our nest."\nNo group claimed responsibility for the attacks, the bloodiest in Iraq in six months. But Kurdish and U.S. officials blamed Muslim extremists -- particularly Ansar al-Islam, an armed group that operates in the Kurdish enclave and is believed allied with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.\n"All indications point to the involvement of Islamic terrorists with al Qaeda connections," Barham Salih, prime minister of the PUK-dominated sector of the Kurdish region, said by telephone from Washington.\nAnsar al-Islam, or "Helpers of Islam," is a group of several hundred Kurdish militants who have vowed to establish an independent Islamic state in the north. It was formed in 2000 and began stepping up its activities in October 2001.\nKurdish officials say more Ansar fighters have entered Iraq since Saddam Hussein's fall.\n"Our information indicates that al Qaeda was behind this ugly terrorist act," Kosrat Rasul Ali, the No. 2 man in PUK, told The Associated Press.\nBrig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division, told reporters that the Irbil bombings, along with a Jan. 18 attack in the capital that killed 25 people, were "different from the sort of hit-and-run style" of Saddam loyalists thought to be behind anti-U.S. attacks in Baghdad and central Iraq.\n"It concerns us that it could be another enemy, a different enemy, a foreign-influenced enemy, a terrorist network enemy," he said in Baghdad.\nAlso in Baghdad, U.S. administrator Paul Bremer insisted Tuesday that security was improving in Iraq since Saddam was captured Dec. 13.\n"I think the situation has improved importantly since the capture of Saddam Hussein," Bremer told reporters. "Every day that goes by we have more and Iraqis responsible for their own security in the Civil Defense Force and police, Iraqi army and border police."\nThe United States is pushing to meet a June 30 deadline for handing over power to the Iraqis and is seeking to work out differences with Iraqi leaders on creating a new government. Amid the wrangling, the Kurds are demanding to hold onto the considerable autonomy they enjoy in the north.\nOn Tuesday, insurgents fired two rockets at Baghdad International Airport but caused no casualties, the U.S. military said. The airport is used as a major base for the military. A command spokesman said the rockets were fired from a heavily populated area of the city.