BAGHDAD, Jan 31: A series of attacks killed at least 14 people, with one car bomb ripping through northern Baghdad’s Bab al-Muadam district, leaving five people dead and 12 wounded, security officials said.

The violence came as Iraq announced plans for a regional peace conference to involve its neighbours in weighing strategies to keep the chronic conflict from sliding into civil war.Ten mortar rounds fired into the north-eastern Sunni district of Adhamiyah killed four people and wounded 20.Three more US soldiers also died fighting insurgents, the military said, as the US admiral set to command Middle East forces warned Congress time was running out to save the situation.

“I believe the situation in Iraq can be turned around but time is short,” Admiral William Fallon told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

He endorsed a plan to deploy 21,500 more US troops to Iraq, mainly to secure Baghdad, but stressed that the strategy had to mark a break from the past.

“What we’ve been doing is not working. We’ve got to be doing something different,” he said.

The fresh troops are to underpin a new Baghdad security plan which intends to put a combined 80,000-strong Iraqi-US force on the capital’s streets.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said more troops could be deployed if needed.

“We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need, we will ask for more troops,” Maliki told CNN television. Baghdad also intends to stem violence by roping neighbours, including Iran, into a peace conference to be held in March.

A foreign ministry official said invitations to the meeting had been sent to Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey as well as to Egypt, Bahrain, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Iraq’s sectarian conflict threatens to spill over into the region, with Iran accused of supporting Shia militias while Saudi Arabia is reportedly considering aiding outnumbered Sunni Arabs if foreign troops leave.

Iran and its top regional ally Syria, both accused by the United States of fomenting the violence, jointly called in January for such a meeting on Iraq.

Meanwhile, the US military said it is investigating whether Iranian agents were involved in a raid on an Iraqi compound that killed five US soldiers.

“It’s becoming a line of inquiry,” said one defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.A second defence official confirmed investigators were considering an Iranian connection in part because the attack was so sophisticated, with US-style uniforms, US weapons and US cars helping gunmen slip through Iraqi security.

In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow would not comment, telling reporters: “I’m not getting into that sort of speculation.” But Fallon, who is not yet the top Middle East commander, told the Senate confirmation committee he would seek regional support for efforts to check Iran, which he said was developing military capabilities to deny US forces access to the oil-rich Gulf.—AFP