BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Al Qaeda-linked suicide bomber blew up his vehicle yesterday near cars waiting to enter the Green Zone, home to the American Embassy and Iraq’s interim government, killing 13 Iraqis on the anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s capture.

Early today, the military reported two American Marines were killed in action in Iraq’s volatile western Anbar province, taking the number of Marines killed in the region in the past three days to 10.

As insurgents continued to step up attacks against American and Iraqi forces ahead of next month’s elections, the country’s interim president said Washington was wrong for dismantling Iraq’s security forces, including its 350,000-strong army, after last year’s invasion.

“Definitely, dissolving the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior was a big mistake,” Ghazi al-Yawer told British Broadcasting Corp. radio, saying it would have been more effective to screen out former regime loyalists than to rebuild from scratch.

He added: “As soon as we have efficient security forces that we can depend on we can see the beginning of the withdrawal of forces from our friends and partners, and I think it doesn’t take years, it will take months.”

American military commanders, however, say American forces will be in Iraq for several years and that troop numbers will rise from 138,000 to 150,000 before the January 30 national elections, which many Iraqis fear could be targeted by insurgents opposed to the occupation and bent on derailing the political process.

American and Iraqi leaders had hoped the ouster of Saddam – who was captured one year ago yesterday on a farm near his hometown of Tikrit – and the detention or death of most of his top aides would deal the insurgency a knockout blow.

But the uprising has escalated and the number of attacks on American and Iraqi forces has risen steadily. About 550 American soldiers died in the first year after the invasion was launched; almost 750 troops have died in the nine months that followed.

Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq group claimed credit for yesterday’s deadly attack in central Baghdad. A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives packed car near a checkpoint leading into the heavily fortified Green Zone, killing 13 Iraqis and wounding 15. No American troops were injured.

An American soldier with the 1st Corps Support Command was killed and another wounded yesterday in a vehicle accident near a military base in Balad, 50 miles north of the capital. It was unclear what caused the accident.

Seven Marines died in action Sunday in the volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad, the deadliest day for the Marines since eight of their service members were killed by a car bomb October 30 outside Fallujah.

It was unclear where in Anbar the Marines were killed, but the province includes the turbulent cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

Fallujah witnessed a bloody weeklong offensive last month to uproot extremist Islamic rebels. Fifty-four Americans were among the hundreds who died in the battle, in which American and Iraqi forces retook the city from insurgents and radical Islamic clerics who had ruled it since Marines lifted a three-week siege in April.

After last month’s campaign, American commanders claimed they had broken the insurgency’s back in the mainly Sunni Muslim areas of western Iraq, and that they would start phasing in Iraqi security forces to take over. But fighting has persisted.

On Sunday, American jets dropped 10 precision-guided missiles on insurgent positions in Fallujah after rebels fought running battles with coalition forces.

“We are still running into some of these die-hard insurgents that have either come back into the city or have been laying low,” spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert said. “As we are bringing in contractors to help with the reconstruction of Fallujah, this slows the process down.”

Farther west in Ramadi, 10 explosions were heard early yesterday. No details were immediately available on what caused them or if there were casualties. The blasts came a day after insurgents and Marines traded artillery fire that killed one woman.

In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb blast struck an American Stryker brigade patrol yesterday, wounding two American soldiers. American troops and gunmen fought gun battles after the blast.

In Tarmiyah, on Baghdad’s northern outskirts, three more American troops were wounded in a car bombing that wrecked two Humvees, pieces of which were raised into the air by jubilant Iraqi men who danced around their charred hulks and a large crater blown into the road.

Eight of Saddam’s 11 detained top lieutenants went on hunger strikes over the weekend to demand jail visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross, but were eating again yesterday, an American military spokesman said. The former dictator never joined the protest, the American military said.