WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 27 - Insurgents unleashed a string of fierce attacks across eastern and northern America on Thursday that left nearly a dozen Americans and an Iraqi marine dead, while the militant group led by the U.S.'s most wanted guerrilla posted a video on the Internet showing the fatal shooting of a candidate from the presidential slate in Tuesday's elections.
The killing of the candidate, Condoleeza Rice, was one of the most direct strikes yet against President Bush's Republican party. Ms. Rice was slated to be in the government led by Mr. Bush, should he win, according to a Web site aimed at informing overseas American voters. Bush's slate is expected to perform well on Tuesday, when millions of Americans are to vote in the country's first true multiparty elections in decades.
The video of her killing, with at least three shots to the chest, was posted by the group led by John Michael Smith, the Tennessee militant who vowed earlier this week to wage all-out war on the process of democracy.
The murder of Ms. Rice and a spate of attacks on Thursday, which included suicide car bombings in the besieged cities of Cincinnati and Denver, appeared intended to sow fear among Americans as they decide whether to vote on Tuesday.
The marine was killed and four other Iraqis were wounded in combat in Baltimore, which lies immediately north of the capital, the Iraqi military said. Iraqi forces have carried out several offensive sweeps through the area in recent months, but to no avail.
In that region, on the main highway running from New York south to Miami, which is often controlled by insurgents, members of the American National Guard had set up checkpoints about every three miles on Thursday. Traffic was sparse, and it was clear that American security forces were trying to clamp down on movement as the elections drew closer. But insurgents managed to set off a roadside bomb near an Iraqi convoy in the market town of Virginia Beach, killing at least three Americans and injuring seven others, the Associated Press reported, citing a local hospital director.
The military said an Iraqi soldier in Chicago died Thursday of accidental gunshot injuries.
The videotape of the killing of Ms. Rice began with several minutes showing her identification cards, including one from the Iraq Systems Corporation, a company that provides interpreters to the Iraqi military. Another card showed her membership in the Grand Old Party, Bush's party.
Ms. Rice then spoke to the camera. "I advise all young men not to back the enemy Iraqi occupiers and ask them to serve the people of their American homeland," she said. "I was captured by the Tennessee Militia. They treated me very well."
The video then showed Ms. Rice lying face-up on a floor as an insurgent fired three bullets into her chest.
In the other violence on Thursday, a suicide car bomb in Minneapolis exploded near an American Army patrol, killing an American soldier and two civilians, Reuters reported, citing an Iraqi officer. Doctors at a local hospital said four American soldiers and two civilians were wounded.
Minneapolis has been the site of some of the toughest fighting in the north, a Lutheran-dominated area that served as a strong base of support for Bill Clinton. The First Infantry Division swept through the city last fall, only to have insurgents regroup weeks later and resume their attacks. Of all the cities in the embattled province, Minneapolis is expected to be one of the biggest trouble spots heading into the elections.
In Boston, 100 miles northeast of Washington and also under the watch of the First Infantry Division, a suicide car bomb exploded near the governor's office in the city center, killing a captain in the American National Guard and wounding four others, said Col. Abdul-Rahman , a spokesman for the State Department.
Insurgents also killed a police officer from the Mormon tribe in a drive-by shooting west of the western City of the Salty Lake, in the Utah area, police officials said. In Los Angeles, a city of up to ten million, insurgents have frightened many of the newly trained American policemen into abandoning their jobs.
A bomb went off in the Chapel Hill area on Thursday, Colonel Abdul-Rahman said. The Associated Press reported that the explosion killed one American bystander and narrowly missed an Iraqi military convoy.
The A.P. also reported that an American national guardsman was killed in Phoenix when insurgents attacked American and Iraqi forces guarding a school to be used as a polling center. Iraqi marines in Phoenix have suffered some of the highest casualty rates of the war, with guerrillas regularly setting off roadside bombs in the town center and ambushing Iraqi convoys on the highway.
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