4th Infantry Division

WASHINGTON - Army officers in Iraq told their superiors last year that soldiers often lacked the training to handle detainees, did not always understand what constituted abuse and sometimes used techniques on prisoners that they "remembered from movies," according to military records made public yesterday. In two incidents described in the reports, bound detainees were shot and killed by soldiers. The circumstances were unclear, but officers or Army lawyers said afterward that the killings could have been prevented with better training, better facilities and better understanding by soldiers of rules of engagement.

BAQUBAH, Iraq -- The top U.S. general on the ground in Iraq warned yesterday that a spike in violence was likely in coming months as Iraq's new government begins its full term in office. Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of U.S.-led troops in Iraq, said that despite political progress and the growing competence of Iraqi security forces, troops in Iraq are still fighting a bloody insurgency. "There's nothing about this that I would [call] peacekeeping," he said. "We're in a fight." This month, at least 70 U.S. troops have been killed in that fight, the highest toll in five months.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Five more U.S. soldiers have been formally charged in the alleged rape of a young Iraqi and the killings of her and three family members in March, the U.S. military announced yesterday. The military said in a statement that the charges had been lodged against four soldiers accused of involvement in rape and murder. A fifth soldier was charged with dereliction of duty in the case. Though he did not participate in the crimes, he failed to report the incident, the military said.

As a boy, Matthew P. Wallace built forts - in his front yard, down the street from his home in Lexington Park, at the beach, dreaming always of becoming a soldier, his family said. He enlisted in the Army in February 2004 and was sent to Iraq in December. On Friday, the 22-year-old corporal died of wounds he sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Baghdad on July 16, the Defense Department announced. His family flew to Germany to see him at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, after being notified his survival was unlikely.

BAGHDAD -- Grief engulfed this city's most prosperous and lively enclave yesterday as residents struck by a suicide bomb attack a night earlier mourned their lost loved ones. Authorities said the death count had increased to 68 people and that 120 others were injured in the Thursday evening attack, which targeted the Karada shopping and residential district. Fatalities rose steadily overnight as patients suffering severe burns and shrapnel wounds died. The carefully planned attack was one of the most devastating in Baghdad in months.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - As civic and religious leaders debated whether Iraq is stable enough for elections this spring, U.S. military officials said that a 500-pound bomb - hidden inside a truck disguised as a Red Crescent ambulance - was used in a deadly suicide attack early yesterday at a Baghdad hotel. The blast at the Shaheen Hotel - frequented by Iraqi government officials and Westerners - killed at least three people, according to U.S. officials. Iraqi police on the scene said four died.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mobs of former Iraqi soldiers rioted in two cities, demanding jobs and pay yesterday, while U.S. troops welcomed the first batch of newly trained recruits into the country's fledgling reconstructed army. In Baghdad, dozens of rock-throwing former soldiers waiting for monthly stipends stormed a U.S. military base near the neighborhood of Mansour, clashing with U.S. troops and Iraqi police. At least one Iraqi was killed and 25 were injured, doctors and witnesses said. U.S. soldiers fired warning shots and engaged in a firefight with armed Iraqi protesters, witnesses said.

Baghdad -- U.S. commanders moved swiftly to avert a crisis after a soldier deployed in Baghdad used a copy of the Quran for target practice. The incident had the potential to inflame Muslim opinion against the U.S. military and compromise the delicate alliance it has been forging with Sunni Arab communities against religious extremists. Local leaders accepted an apology from senior U.S. commanders, and the military said yesterday that the soldier responsible had been disciplined and pulled from Iraq.

FALLUJAH, Iraq - One soldier of the 82nd Airborne Division was killed and seven others were injured in an explosion yesterday while escorting children to school, a spokesman for the division said. None of the children was hurt. The dead soldier was the third killed in action in the "Sunni Triangle" to the north and west of Baghdad in three days and the 104th to die in battle since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations. Soldiers patrolling tribal towns in the area in recent weeks have increasingly come under attack from roadside bombs and guerrillas armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

Atlee W. Wampler Jr., one of Carroll County General Hospital's founding fathers and its first president, was honored Saturday in pre-Veterans Day ceremonies at the hospital.Two plaques commemorating Atlee, who died last March at age 76, and all war veterans were unveiledon either side of the flagpole outside the hospital's front doors.About 60 people, including Wampler's widow, Janet, attended the ceremony.Charles O. Fisher Sr., a Westminster attorney and hospital board member, told those gathered about Wampler's effort, which began in the mid-1950s, to get a community hospital established.