Bednarek predicted it would be weeks before Iraqi police and soldiers could keep al-Qaida out of western Baqouba, and months before they were able to do the same on the city's east side and outlying villages.

Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division and of an operation clearing Baghdad's southern outskirts, was asked at a news conference whether he thought Iraqi troops would be able to secure his gains.

"There's not enough of them, there's not enough of them," Lynch replied. "So I believe the Iraqi government has got to work to create more Iraqi security forces."

He cited statements by Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the outgoing head of the training command here who told a US congressional panel this month that the Iraqi army, now 159,000 troops, should be expanded by at least 20,000 in order to free US troops from some critical missions.

In violence around Iraq on Sunday, a roadside bomb exploded at noon in central Samarra, north of Baghdad, killing four Interior Ministry special forces personnel in a passing utility vehicle, police reported. Farther north, Ninevah provincial police said gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed Ahmed Zeinel, a Shiite Kurdish member of the provincial council, as he left his house in Mosul on Sunday morning.

In the largely Shiite city of Hillah, south of Baghdad, a car bomb Saturday evening killed at least two people and wounded 18 others, a hospital official reported. Hillah has been the target of some of the deadliest car bomb attacks by suspected Sunni Muslim extremists in the four years of insurgency and sectarian killings in Iraq.

On the political front, two blocs of Sunni lawmakers, holding 55 seats, boycotted Sunday's session of the 275-seat Iraqi parliament in a continuing controversy over the removal of the Sunni parliament speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.

The boycott came a day after the parliament decided to cancel at least the first month of a two-month summer vacation supposed to start on July 1, in order to take up legislation, including a new law governing the oil industry, on which the United States has been pressing for approval.

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