An American soldier was killed and another was wounded today in a drive-by shooting in central Baghdad, the latest in a series of assaults on the United States military.
In a separate incident, two Iraqis were killed when a United States soldier fired into a crowd of protesters this morning.
A United States military spokesman said today that attackers fired on soldiers from the First Armored Division from a passing vehicle. On Tuesday, a soldier from the same division died after being shot in the back by a sniper while on patrol in northern Baghdad.
Today's incident brings the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq since major combat was declared over on May 1 to at least 42. It is also the 12th fatal attack on the American military in the last three weeks.
The two Iraqis were killed after an American soldier fired four times into a crowd of protesters gathered at the gates of a palace in Baghdad. The soldier, from the First Armored Division, had fired warning shots after the protesters threw rocks and bricks at a convoy of Humvees trying to enter the palace, military officers said.
The convoy passed through the crowd of former Iraqi Army officers demanding their salaries, which were cut off after coalition forces disbanded the army.
On Monday night a sniper shot and killed an American soldier on patrol in a northwestern neighborhood of the Iraqi capital Monday night.
Military officials said the soldier, a member of the First Armored Division, was in his vehicle just before midnight when he was struck in the back by a small-caliber bullet. He was rushed to a battalion aid station, where he died from the wound.
Large-scale military raids continued in Baghdad on Tuesday and across a broad arc of territory north and west of the capital, resulting in the arrest of more than 400 people since Monday, military officials said.
Several thousand troops from the First Armored Division, the Fourth Infantry Division, the 101st Airborne Division, the Third Infantry Division and the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment were involved in the raids, which have been mounted to try to suppress pockets of resistance.
A prominent member of the former Iraqi opposition, Iyad Alawi, on Tuesday criticized the broad military operations, saying that raids more narrowly directed at individual members of the former government of Saddam Hussein would be more effective and less inflammatory among the Iraqis.
Mr. Alawi, the exile leader who has returned here with American support as the head of the Iraqi National Accord, said top 200 to 300 officials of the Baath Party, the Republican Guard, the Special Republican Guard and the major intelligence and security organs should be arrested.
"I would embark on pre-emptive arrests," he said, of officials who are encouraging or at least sympathetic to the attacks on allied forces.
"Once you get them out of the way," he said, "it will be easy to deal with the rest" of the lower level sympathizers who have been taking orders or cash payments to undertake attacks.
At a news conference on Tuesday, the top American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, said that despite the lack of security, hundreds, if not thousands, of reconstruction projects were going forward across the country. But he added that efforts had been slowed in areas where military operations were under way.
Responding to growing expressions of resentment from Iraqi civilians who have been caught up in mass arrests or terrified by armored assaults through their neighborhoods and villages, Mr. Bremer said, "When we have military operations we try to show that we are not at war with the Iraqi people."
He also announced that allied forces are setting up a special Iraqi court to try senior members of the Baath Party and other loyalists "who are trying to destabilize the situation here."
Before the court is set up, he said, a committee will review all judicial appointments to eliminate judges discredited by their service in Mr. Hussein's government. Under the court rules, defendants will have the right to counsel and the right to refuse to testify without prejudice. He gave no start-up date.
On Thursday, Mr. Bremer is to meet with the leaders of Iraq's main political groups and other prominent Iraqis to advance discussions on how to form an interim Iraqi administration. Most of the groups are pressing Mr. Bremer to allow them to organize independent of the allies so that any interim Iraqi leadership group that emerges can claim greater legitimacy before local constituencies.
In the interview on Tuesday, Mr. Alawi said his group would not take part in a "provisional government" that would have to "take permission" from the allies to govern. He called on Mr. Bremer to engage Iraqi groups in immediate discussions on the formation of a "sovereign Iraqi government of national unity."
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