More Iraq.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Amid a spree of attacks on hotels, the U.S. Army commander of Baghdad on Thursday said while the coalition is winning the war, there's no end in sight to Iraq's reign of terror and that "there's not enough concrete in the hemisphere" to defend every hotel in the capital.

"We are putting in place the mechanisms to defeat terror," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, overall commander of U.S. operations in Baghdad, disclosing that nearly half of the 47,000 security forces in the capital are Iraqis who are equipped, trained and vetted by the coalition to someday police their own country.

Meantime, he said, both civilians and coalition forces must "be on the offensive. You cannot sit back and wait for a terrorist to pick the point of his choosing."

Dempsey said U.S. raids by his 1st Armored Division had just captured an unidentified Jordanian with links to Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, the man coalition officials frequently blame as the mastermind for murderous attacks on Iraqis designed to disrupt coalition cooperation.

But a car bomb blew up in broad daylight Thursday outside a hotel in the southern city of Basra, killing three bystanders near the building sometimes used by British coalition forces. Gunmen also opened fire on a minibus in Baquoba, northeast of Baghdad, killing three Iraqi television journalists and wounding nine others who work at a coalition-sponsored station.

Hours later, insurgents again mortared the Green Zone where coalition officials are managing the occupation, sending booms and sirens echoing through the night. Almost simultaneously, rockets or mortars rattled the Karrada district, near two hotels, one called the Sinbad Palace that has been popular with visiting Kurds. No casualties were immediately reported.

Lots more at link

In case you're wondering, all of this has taken place since the Lebanon Hotel bombing.

Also on the wires is the story that at least nine returned GIs have committed suicide since coming back from Iraq. If I can pull together enough information, I'll write up a bit. I'm sure you'll hear more about this in the coming days.