Iraq, Jordan tensions grow on anniversary of invasion

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Insurgents targeted Iraqi and U.S. security forces with gunfire, suicide attacks and mortar rounds Sunday, killing six people -- including a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi corruption official -- as the conflict moved into its third year since the U.S.-led invasion.\nNeighbors Iraq and Jordan also withdrew their highest-level diplomats from each others' territory as tensions between the two countries increase over the alleged involvement of a Jordanian in a deadly suicide bomb attack in the city of Hillah.\nSeparately, a Jordanian court sentenced Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, in absentia to 15 years in prison.\nA bomb exploded early Sunday near the northern city of Kirkuk, killing a U.S. soldier and wounding three others, the U.S. military said in a statement.\nElsewhere in northern Iraq, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a government compound in Mosul, killing Walid Kashmoula, the head of the Iraqi police anti-corruption department, officials said. Three others were wounded.\nAl-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack in a message posted on an Islamic Web site known for carrying statements from extremist militant groups.\n"The renegade Walid Kashmoula has been assassinated by a martyrdom operation, thanks to God, and he is the No. 1 American agent in Mosul," said Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the designated "media coordinator" for al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq. The statement could not be verified.\nInsurgents have increasingly targeted Iraqi security and government officials they see as collaborators with the U.S.-led mission.\nPeople in Baghdad said saboteurs blew up a municipal building in a western neighborhood, reducing the two-story building to rubble. No injuries were reported. A Humvee also was overturned on the highway to the airport. Witnesses said it was hit by a roadside bomb, but U.S. military officials were not available to comment. U.S. troops sealed off the area.\nIraq's fledgling security force has been struggling to build its ranks and fight the lawlessness that has gripped the country in the two years since President Bush ordered the U.S.-led invasion on March 19, 2003. The anniversary of the invasion falls on March 20 in Iraq, because of the time difference.\nAssailants leapt from their vehicle and unleashed gunfire on a policeman walking to work in Samarra, killing the man, said Maj. Sadoun Ahmed, a police official in the Sunni Triangle town some 60 miles north of Baghdad.\nPolice who went to collect the man's body also came under attack, sparking a gunfight that left three police injured along with a trio of attackers, who were arrested, police Lt. Qassim Mohammed said.\nIn the southern city of Basra, attackers targeted a police patrol with a roadside bomb, killing one civilian and injuring a policeman, police Col. Karim al-Zeidi said.\nInsurgents also lobbed mortar fire into a neighborhood just outside the walls of an Iraqi army base in the town of Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad, killing one civilian and injuring two others, said Ikbal Sabir, an official at the Yarmouk Hospital where the bodies were taken.\nThe name of the U.S. soldier killed Sunday was not released pending notification of relatives. At least 1,520 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count.\nExplaining the tit-for-tat diplomatic withdrawals, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Iraq's ambassador to Amman was being recalled for "consultations." Earlier, Jordan said it was doing the same to its highest official in Baghdad.\nThe decision followed a week of mounting anti-Jordanian sentiment after a newspaper reported that Jordanian Raed Mansour al-Banna carried out the bombing in Hillah, the single deadliest attack of Iraq's insurgency. Al-Banna's family has denied his involvement.