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BAGHDAD — The killers came at night, speaking passable English and wearing uniforms and carrying weapons that resembled those of the American military.
By the time they left the south Baghdad district of Hur Rijab on Friday evening, they had fatally shot or slit the throats of 25 members of an extended family, Iraqi officials said Saturday, in a chilling episode of violence reminiscent of the worst days of the country’s sectarian warfare in 2006 and 2007.

Most of the 19 male victims had been members of Iraqi security forces or of Awakening Councils, groups that now partner with American forces and are employed by the Iraqi government to protect Sunni neighborhoods, but whose members had once been allied with Sunni extremist groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia during fighting against American troops.

Members of Awakening Councils are often targeted by Al Qaeda as traitors, but their families have typically not been attacked. Iraqi authorities said 25 people had been arrested as part of the investigation, including some who lived near the families.

At Mahmudia Hospital, 25 coffins arrived on a truck Saturday morning for the victims, who ranged in age from teenagers to men in their 70s.

Family members, men standing separate from women, waited outside the hospital, stunned by what had happened.

Luyai Khadum said he had lost his father and four brothers.

“They were all killed,” he said. “I lost five family members. We are a Dulaimy family so why would they do this to us?”

Often, a mention of the family’s influential tribe, the Dulaimy, is enough to protect them. This time it was no help.

Details of the attack remained sketchy Saturday afternoon, as Iraqi police cordoned off the neighborhood and ordered a curfew there. The known survivors are all children.

But according to accounts by relatives of the victims, neighbors, Iraqi security officials, and others, as many as a dozen men wearing what resembled American and Iraqi military uniforms arrived in the neighborhood in a minibus and Iraqi military and police vehicles Friday night.

Witnesses, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said some of the men wore black masks and carried weapons that resembled M-16 rifles, which are used by the American military.

They knocked on the doors of several houses and gathered people at the home of Saif Shaker, an Awakening Council member.

They men said they were part of a joint unit of American and Iraqi soldiers investigating a crime.

Some of the men spoke English translated to Arabic by an interpreter who told the family that the adults — men and women — should go upstairs, while the children should be left downstairs. They were told not to worry.

Upstairs, their hands were bound. Then, the 16 men and four women who had been gathered were shot in the head or chest, the sound of gunfire echoing through the neighborhood.

The children were left crying and shaking with fear.

“I came back home and I saw the children inside one of the rooms,” said Khalid Ahmed, a family member. He said he did not go upstairs for a few minutes but when he did he found it covered in blood, the bodies of his family dead on the floor.

Iraqi authorities said after the gunmen fled, they stole the family’s car and went to the house of Kadham Abbas Saeil al-Dulaimy, another Awakening Council leader.

Again, the armed men claimed to be members of an American and Iraqi military unit, and separated children from adults.

One of men referred to one of the women, Ipti Hal, by name and told her to go upstairs with the other adult members of the family, said Luyai Khadum, a family member who said surviving children had given him that detail.

The men then bound the hands of the three men and two women, including Ms. Hal, and slit their throats, the authorities said.

The armed men stole about $9,000 and the family’s gold jewelry, said Mr. Khadum.

Mr. Khadum, said that on Thursday, a group of what neighbors told him was a joint American and Iraqi military force had come to the house but found no one home. He said neighbors told him that the armed men had threatened them with arrest if they told the family they had come to the house.

Iraqi soldiers stopped vehicles at a checkpoint in Baghdad on Saturday as part of security measures after killings in the south district of Hur Rijab.

A string of three deadly suicide bombings killed 30 people in the former insurgent stronghold of Baqouba on Wednesday, including a blast from a suicide bomber who rode in an ambulance with the wounded before blowing himself up at a hospital, police said.

The bombings — Iraq’s deadliest in weeks — come as Iraq is preparing for March 7 parliamentary elections. The crucial balloting will decide who will oversee the country as U.S. forces go home and help determine whether Iraq can overcome the deep sectarian tensions that have divided the nation since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned repeatedly that insurgents were expected to launch such attacks in an attempt to disrupt the crucial vote. A man purporting to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi — the leader of an al-Qaida front group in Iraq — has vowed to violently disrupt the vote.

The bombings could also affect the candidacy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who came to power in 2006 and oversaw a return to relative stability in 2008 and 2009. Al-Maliki has continued to bill himself as the best candidate to assure security in Iraq.

A police spokesman in the volatile Diyala province, Capt. Ghalib al-Karkhi, said the blasts struck in quick succession in Baqouba, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad, and also wounded 48 people.

First, a suicide car bomb targeted a local government housing office next to an Iraqi Army facility. Within minutes, another suicide bomber blew up a vehicle about 200 yards (meters) down the street from the first blast at an intersection near the provincial government headquarters where many police and army personnel were located, al-Karkhi said.

A third suicide bomber, wearing an explosives vest, rode in an ambulance with the wounded to the city’s emergency hospital and blew himself up as rescuers and victims from the first two blasts were being rushed in for treatment, he added.

Most of the victims came from the blast at the hospital, al-Karkhi said. Police later safely detonated a fourth car bomb about 220 yards (200 meters) from the hospital.

An official in the Diyala police department who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media confirmed the death toll.

Insurgents often spread out bomb attacks as a way to maximize damage as rescuers and others rush to the scene to help or ferry the victims to hospital for treatment.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but such attacks have been the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq. Police said they arrested four suspects and imposed an open-ended curfew on the city as they search for more suspects.

One witness in Baqouba described being thrown against a nearby wall by the first blast and said that immediately after the explosion, Iraqi security forces began firing their weapons. The witness said she hid in a nearby building, then when the situation appeared to have calmed down, went outside only to hear another blast go off seconds later.

“The place was covered with dust and the smell of TNT powder was all over the area, where panicked people were running and cars were colliding with one another,” said the witness. She spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.

The provincial police chief, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Hussein al-Shimari, was in the hospital at the time of the blast, but was unharmed, al-Karkhi said.

Deputy Interior Minister Iden Khalid said at a press conference later Wednesday in Baghdad that security forces expect further attempts to carry out attacks, but that the security situation will not interfere with Sunday’s vote.

Wednesday’s bombings were the deadliest since the start of February, when a female suicide bomber detonated her explosives inside a way station for Shiite pilgrims marking an important Shiite religious occasion, killing 54 people. At the time, Baghdad’s top security official said extremists were adopting new methods to outwit bomb-detection squads such as stashing explosives deep inside the engines and frames of vehicles.

In January, a two-day wave of suicide car bombers struck three hotels in Baghdad and the city’s main crime lab, killing at least 63 people.

Iraqi authorities have vowed tight security in the capital and the rest of the country in the run-up to the election and on voting day. Generally a vehicle ban is imposed across Iraq, the airport will be shut down on Sunday and hundreds of thousands of police and army troops dispersed across the country.

Baqouba is a mixed Shiite-Sunni city and Diyala’s provincial capital. Both the city and the province were flashpoints of the insurgency, although they have quieted since the height of attacks in 2006 and 2007. Hard money training.

The Sunni wing of Iraq’s leading nonsectarian political coalition said Saturday it will drop out of next month’s election as a result of alleged Iranian influence on a Shiite-led vetting panel that blacklisted hundreds of candidates.

The announcement raises the likelihood that the legitimacy of the March 7 parliamentary vote will be called into question. U.S. and United Nations diplomats have expressed fears that a disputed result could also open the door to a new round of violence and delay plans for American troops to leave Iraq.

Further raising the stakes, the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue called on other parties to join it in withdrawing from the vote. It stopped short, however, of advocating a boycott by Sunni voters — a strategy blamed for depriving Sunnis of a political voice in the past.

In a statement explaining the step, spokesman Haidar al-Mullah said the party decided to pull out of the vote after U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American military commander in Iraq, each described the Shiite leaders of a candidate-vetting panel as having ties to Iran.

He described the panel’s work as an Iranian-influenced process and said, “The Iraqi Front for National Dialogue cannot continue in a political process run by a foreign agenda.”

The vetting panel is led by Shiite politicians Ali al-Lami and Ahmed Chalabi. It banned more than 440 candidates whom it described as loyalists to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party.

Most of the blacklisted candidates are Sunni, although some are Shiite. Among those barred from running is Sunni lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq, the head of the National Dialogue party. Al-Mutlaq has said he quit the Baath party in the 1970s.

In a speech last week to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, Odierno said the U.S. has direct intelligence that al-Lami and Chalabi “are clearly influenced by Iran.” Odierno also accused al-Lami of having been “involved in various nefarious activities in Iraq for some time.”

A day later, Hill told reporters in Washington that “absolutely, these gentlemen are certainly under the influence of Iran.”

Hill added: “We remain concerned about Iran’s behavior toward its neighbors. Iran should have a good relationship with its neighbor, but it needs to do a much better job of respecting its neighbor’s sovereignty.”

A perception among Sunnis that they are being shut out of the election could set back progress the U.S. military made in 2006 and 2007 in reversing the insurgency, which threatened Iraq with civil war. A breakdown in security could also hamper U.S. plans to withdraw all combat troops by the end of August, a step that is critical to President Barack Obama’s new focus on Afghanistan.

The National Dialogue currently has 11 members in parliament, including al-Mutlaq. It is the main Sunni wing of the Iraqi National Movement, the nation’s top nonsectarian coalition. The Shiite wing of the National Movement is headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Shortly after al-Mullah issued his statement Saturday morning, another party, the National Council for Tribes of Iraq, said it also would drop out. The party includes both Sunnis and Shiites. Hard money training.

A twin car bombing Friday targeted a crowd of Shiite pilgrims packing a highway as they walked to a holy city south of Baghdad for a major religious ceremony, killing at least 32 and wounding 154 people, Iraqi ministry officials said.

It was the third deadly bombing this week hitting the ceremony in which hundreds of thousands of Shiites have been converging on the city of Karbala. Friday’s attack struck during the culmination of the pilgrimage.

This week’s violence took place as Iraqi politicians argued over an effort to bar hundreds of candidates from running in the March 7 parliamentary elections because of suspected ties to Saddam Hussein’s regime. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday he would not allow the U.S. ambassador to meddle in the dispute, which Washington fears could frustrate Sunni-Shiite reconciliation.

Friday’s attack began shortly after noon when a parked car bomb exploded just east of one of three main entrances to Karbala, two health ministry officials said. The explosion sent throngs of pilgrims running down the highway and straight into the path of a suicide car bomber who detonated the vehicle, they said.

At least 154 people were wounded in the consecutive blasts, the officials said.

However, an Iraqi police official reported it was two mortar rounds that struck the area, followed by a suicide car bomb. Such conflicting accounts are common in the chaotic aftermath of bombings in Iraq.

The attack came at the height of the pilgrimage when roads around Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad, were clogged with people trying to reach the city by Friday. The crowds made it difficult for ambulances to get to the wounded, another police official said.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The Arbaeen holy day, preceded by days of mass marches to Karbala, marks the end of 40 days of mourning after the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, a revered Shiite figure.

The concentration of Shiites makes the annual ceremony a prime target for suspected Sunni militants.

Iraqi security forces have increased protection for pilgrims but face huge challenges trying to find a single attacker in the crowds — and this year’s Arbaeen commemorations have been the deadliest since 2007.

Friday’s attack in Karbala was just a short distance from where a bomb exploded two days earlier, killing around two dozen people. And on Monday, a female suicide bomber killed at least 54 pilgrims heading for the city in an attack just north of Baghdad.

In another attack Friday, a roadside bomb struck a bus carrying pilgrims through Baghdad, killing one and wounding 13, police and hospital officials said on condition of anonymity for the same reason as the others.

In each of the past two years, attacks during the ceremonies killed around 60 Shiites, a drop from the more than 340 killed in 2007.

Iraqi security forces have increased protection for pilgrims but face huge challenges trying to find a single attacker in the crowds.

In Pakistan, where Shiites are also attacked by Sunni extremists, two bombs targeting those observing Arbaeen exploded on Friday. One blast went off outside a hospital treating victims from the earlier attack on worshippers heading to a procession. At least 22 people were killed and more than 50 wounded.

In Iraq, tension also escalated this week between al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government and Iraq’s Sunni politicians over the push to ban some candidates from next month’s election.

A parliamentary committee responsible for rooting out Saddam loyalists blacklisted more than 450 politicians, but an appeals court overturned the ban on Wednesday.

Al-Maliki denounced the ruling, and election officials have asked Iraq’s highest judicial authority for a final ruling.

The U.S. is deeply worried the ban could undercut the credibility of the election among Iraqis and cripple efforts to reconcile majority Shiites and the Sunnis who dominated Iraq under Saddam.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill applauded the decision to lift the ban and has said that Iraq must have a credible election.

Al-Maliki warned Hill not to get involved.

“We will not allow American Ambassador Christopher Hill to go beyond his diplomatic mission,” al-Maliki said late Thursday in a statement published on his political coalition’s Web site.

Al-Maliki said the ban on the candidates should be implemented and that Iraq must not bow to U.S. pressure.

The U.S. Embassy dismissed the warning, saying that Hill has been doing what any diplomat normally does — offering his government’s views on issues that could affect American interests.

“That is not going beyond the bounds of acceptable diplomacy. Iraqi leaders take on board our views but then make their own decisions,” said an embassy statement issued to The Associated Press. “Of course, we respect Iraqi sovereignty.” Hard money training.

A bomb planted on a parked motorcycle exploded Wednesday on the outskirts of the holy city of Karbala, killing at least 20 Shiite pilgrims and wounding more than 100 others amid tight security for the huge religious procession, officials said.

The blast was the latest in a string of attacks this week that have targeted pilgrims making their way to an important Shiite religious observance in Karbala, raising fears of a spike in attacks by suspected Sunni insurgents when the pilgrimage culminates Friday.

The bomb exploded at about 11 a.m. in an area known as Ibrahimia, near the east entrance — one of three — into Karbala, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.

At least 108 people were wounded in the attack, the official said, adding that the area was clogged with pilgrims and the number of casualties could increase. A hospital official in Karbala, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the number of dead and wounded.

Hours earlier, two separate roadside bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims exploded in Baghdad, killing one and wounding seven others, a security official in the capital said.

The official said the first attack took place Wednesday at about 6:15 a.m. in western Baghdad, killing one person and wounding three. He said a second explosion in southwest Baghdad wounded four pilgrims.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

For years, the main Shiite pilgrimages have been a prime target for attacks blamed on Sunni extremists seeking to widen sectarian rifts. The current processions have brought hundreds of thousands of people streaming toward Karbala to end the 40-day mourning period marking the death of Hussein, a revered Shiite figure from the 7th century.

The religious events also come about a month before critical parliamentary elections on March 7, which are seen as a test of reconciliation between majority Shiites and minority Sunnis who dominated Iraq until Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003.

On Monday, a woman suicide bomber north of Baghdad killed 54 Shiite pilgrims, including a dozen children. After the attack, authorities promised to intensify security along the pilgrimage route.

Karbala police spokesman, Maj. Alaa Abbas, said more than 30,000 security personnel were deployed around the city. The measures included bomb-sniffing dogs at the three main entrances to Karbala and undercover intelligence agents in the crowds.

But tight security in the past has failed to prevent bloodshed among Shiite pilgrims or at shrines.

During a Shiite pilgrimage in February 2009, a female suicide bomber attacked a tent filled with women and children resting during the walk to Karbala, killing 40 people and wounding 60 others. A month before that, a suicide bomber dressed in women’s clothing and hiding among Iranian pilgrims killed more than three dozen people outside a mosque in Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

Earlier Wednesday, a senior security official said agents arrested 13 suspects believed involved in making explosive belts for suicide attacks.

The official said authorities believe the belts — including five seized by police — were intended for attacks on Shiite pilgrims. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to give the information to media. Hard money training.

A suicide car bomber killed at least 18 and injured dozens more Tuesday in a strike against a police crime lab in central Baghdad, a day after several hotels were also hit by suicide attacks, officials said.

The latest blast came as family members of the Saddam Hussein stalwart known as “Chemical Ali” arrived in Baghdad to collect his body for an afternoon burial. Ali Hassan al-Majid was hanged Monday after a series of convictions for atrocities that included mass killings and crimes against humanity.

This week’s bombings — all against prominent and heavily fortified targets — dealt yet another blow to the image of an Iraqi government struggling to answer for security lapses that have allowed bombers to carry out a number of massive attacks in the heart of the capital since August.

The timing of this week’s deadly bombings have prompted speculation among some Iraqis that the attacks were retaliation for the death sentence. But the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, dismissed those claims, saying there was “absolutely no connection” between the attacks and the execution.

“We didn’t turn Chemical Ali over until yesterday afternoon. … There was no way anybody could have known about that,” Odierno told reporters Tuesday during a question-and-answer session with reporters in his office at Camp Victory, the sprawling U.S. military headquarters on the outskirts of Baghdad.

In Halabja, the scene of a 1988 poison gas attack that cemented Chemical Ali’s infamy, more than 400 Kurdish government officials and families who lost loved ones in the gassing defied the January chill to gather in a cemetery and at a monument to the victims of the attack.

“I am wondering which of my family’s graves I would visit first to tell them about the death of Chemical Ali so they can sleep in peace,” said Parvin Kamal Jalal, a 53-year-old woman who said she lost her parents and 12 other family members in the attack.

Rescue crews are still combing through the rubble looking for casualties of Tuesday’s bombing. Officials say the majority of those killed were likely police officers who worked in the forensic investigation office at Tahariyat Square in the central neighborhood of Karradah. At least 82 people were reported injured.

Police and hospital officials said the bomber in Tuesday’s attack tried to drive a pickup truck through a checkpoint and blast walls protecting the forensic evidence office.

Among those confirmed killed were 12 police officers and six civilians who were visiting the office. Officials said more than half the wounded were police.

Rescue teams in blue jumpsuits combed through the debris of the partially damaged three-story building shortly after the blast as a crane removed some of the 10-foot, 7-ton concert blast walls toppled by the explosion.

The office targeted in the attack mainly deals with data collected during criminal investigations, including fingerprints and other pieces of evidence. The office is located next to the Interior Ministry’s major crimes office, which deals with terrorism cases.

Government offices have been frequent targets of major attacks in the capital since blasts struck the foreign and finance ministries in August, raising questions about the ability of Iraqi security forces to keep the country safe. While the criminal evidence offices have not been targeted by a major suicide bombing before, attackers have struck nearby.

The attack destroyed rooms on the ground floor of the building and damaged parts of the second floor. The office is surrounded by low-rise buildings that contain shops, takeaway restaurants and offices that were also damaged.

Tuesday’s attack came one day after a series of bombings targeting hotels favored by foreigners. The toll from those blasts continued to rise, with 41 people confirmed killed and up to 106 reported injured, police and health officials said Tuesday.

The bombings Monday targeted the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel, Babylon Hotel and Hamra Hotel, which are popular with Western journalists and foreign security contractors.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill issued a statement Tuesday strongly condemning the attacks against the hotels.

“The terrorists who committed these senseless crimes aim to sow fear among the Iraqi people,” he said. “We call upon all Iraqis to unite in combating all forms of violence and attempts at intimidation.”

While there has been no formal claim of responsibility for the attacks at the hotels and against the Ministry of Interior offices, Odierno said it appeared to be the work of al-Qaida.

Multiple bombings are a hallmark of the terror network.

Odierno said al-Qaida in Iraq had morphed into a covert operation made up predominantly of Iraqis rather than foreign fighters who once operated in the open.

The typical al-Qaida operative in Iraq, Odierno said, is “university trained,” with degrees in business administration, engineering and law. Others, he said, were associated with the “old Iraqi security architecture” under Saddam Hussein. Hard money training.

Working in a war zone obviously presents unexpected challenges and dangers far beyond the usual ones at industrial worksites.  But this is the story of why some Army National Guardsmen are suing defense contractor KBR because of alleged exposures to a toxic chemical at one such industrial worksite in Iraq.
When specialist Larry Roberta of the Oregon Army National Guard went to Iraq in 2003, he expected sandstorms, physical hardship, perhaps even combat.  What he didn’t expect was the orange dust he encountered, all over the place, at the Qarmat Ali Water Treatment Plant, near Basra in southern Iraq.

“You could taste stuff in the air,” Roberta recalled. “It had a really strange metallic taste.”

Roberta’s unit and other Army National Guard units were at the plant during the spring and summer of 2003, in the months after the U.S. invasion that March.  Their mission was to provide security for workers repairing the plant.  It supplied water to Iraqi oil fields, and was an important part of the U.S. mission to get Iraq’s oil flowing again. The workers were repairing the plant for defense contractor Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR).

Roberta and other Guardsmen and former KBR employees told NBC News that the orange dust was throughout the plant and the grounds, and sometimes would permeate the air during when the desert winds blew.

“It blew up in my face and on my chicken patty and my mouth and stuff like that,” Roberta said.  “I didn’t really think a whole lot of it other than it tasted really bad and made me throw up and burned.”

Capt. Russell Kimberling of the Indiana Army National Guard told us he asked KBR officials what the dust was.

“What we got from them was,’It’s a mild irritant,’” Kimberling said.

But the dust actually was a highly toxic chemical called sodium dichromate,  which scientists have found can cause lung cancer in humans.

It had been used by Iraqi workers prior to the war to prevent corrosion in the pipes at the plant.  There were hundreds of bags at the chemical at the plant, some of them clearly labeled.

The mission’s official military name was Task Force RIO (”Restoration of Iraqi Oil”).  KBR got the contract.

Six years later, some of the Guardsmen assigned to provide security for Task Force RIO at the plant are dead, dying or suffering from serious health problems–including rashes, perforated septums and lung disease. One of the foremost experts in sodium dichromate, Dr. Herman  Gibb, says the Guardsmen’s symptoms are consistent with “significant exposure” to the chemical.

KBR argues that the company is not to blame. The company says it told the Army about the dangerous chemical as soon as it was identified at the plant.  That, the company says, was on July 25, 2003.

But, international KBR documents contradict that claim, and indicate that the company became aware of the chemical at the site two months earlier. Hard money training.

Iran successfully test-fired a long-range, upgraded Sejil 2 missile on Wednesday, state television reported, a move likely to add to tension with Western powers worried by Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the launch was of serious concern to the international community and underlined the case for tougher sanctions against Iran, the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter.

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the test was part of efforts to boost the country’s deterrent capabilities

Al Alam, Iran’s Arabic-language satellite television, said the two-stage, solid fuel Sejil missile had a longer range than the Islamic Republic’s Shahab model.

Iranian officials have in the past said the Shahab 3 missile can reach targets up to 2,000 km (1,250 miles) away. Such a range would put Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf within reach.

The missile test coincides with increased tension over Iran’s nuclear program, which the West fears is aimed at making bombs. Iran denies the charge.

Neither Israel nor the United States have ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the dispute. Iran has vowed to retaliate against any attack.

State television showed a missile launched from desert-like terrain soaring into the sky with a long vapor trail.

“Iran successfully tests optimized version of Sejil 2 missile,” it said in a breaking news headline.

Vahidi said the missile, which he said was developed by Iranian scientists, needed a shorter launch time and was more accurate than the previous version, state television said.

The test came a day after the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation to impose sanctions on foreign companies that help supply gasoline to Iran, a measure lawmakers hope would deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear work.

“SERIOUS CONCERN”

Iran has repeatedly shrugged off the impact of such punitive measures, that include three rounds of limited U.N. sanctions since 2006.

In Copenhagen, Britain’s Brown said after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: “I have expressed to him and he has also expressed concern about the test of a long-range missile by Iran.

“This is a matter of serious concern to the international community and it does make the case for us moving further on sanctions … We will treat this with the seriousness it deserves.”

In September, Iran test-fired missiles which a commander said could reach any regional target. The White House branded those tests “provocative.”

Washington suspects Iran is trying to develop nuclear bomb capability and has previously expressed concern about Tehran’s missile program. Iran says its nuclear work is solely for generating peaceful electricity.

Earlier this week, diplomats said intelligence suggested that Iran worked on testing a key atomic bomb component as recently as 2007, a finding which if proven would clash with Iran’s assertion its nuclear work is for civilian use.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry rejected the claim as “baseless.”

On Tuesday, Israeli military intelligence chief Major-General Amos Yadlin said: “Iran is striving to improve it surface-to-surface missile capability. It is developing missiles propelled by solid fuel and is expanding their range to other continents.”

The United States and five other major powers said on Tuesday that a planned meeting on Iran’s nuclear program will not take place this year because of scheduling conflicts, although consultations will continue by telephone.

In October, negotiators offered a deal under which Iran would send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment. However, Tehran has backed away from it, raising the prospect of additional sanctions. Hard money training.

Taliban fighters attacked checkpoints in northern and southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing 16 members of the Afghan National police.

Eight policemen were killed before dawn when militants targeted a checkpoint in the northern province of Baghlan. At about the same time, Taliban fighters attacked another outpost in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, killing another eight policemen, the Interior Ministry said.

Two militants were killed and another was wounded in the Baghlan attack, deputy provincial police chief Zalmai Mangal. Baghlan Gov. Mohammad Akbar Barakzai said the policemen were providing security on the main road through the province.

In Lashkar Gah, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi said the attack occurred before dawn.

One policeman who disappeared may have been linked to the attackers, he said, adding the Taliban made off with a police vehicle, six Kalashnikov rifles and a heavy machine gun.

Separately on Monday, NATO said an Afghan-international security force detained a weapons smuggler and a small group of other militants in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan. The suspect allegedly worked with the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network of militants.

The Haqqani network of Afghan fighters directs the battle against U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan from the Waziristan tribal region in Pakistan. NATO said the suspect surrendered to the joint force at a compound in the Sabari district of Khost province.

In southern Afghanistan, NATO said an Afghan-international security force detained a Taliban weapons smuggler and a couple of other militants in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province.

No shots were fired and no one was injured in either operation. Hard money training.