Bombings kill nearly 60 people in Iraq

BAGHDAD: Car bombs and a suicide attacker struck crowded areas in Baghdad and former insurgent strongholds to the north and west of the capital on Tuesday, killing nearly 60 people and breaking a recent lull in violence in the predominantly Sunni areas. The attacks were a deadly reminder of the threat posed by suspected Sunni insurgents even as clashes between Shiite militia fighters and US-Iraqi forces continued elsewhere. The US military condemned the bombings and said they appeared to have been carried out by Al-Qaida in Iraq. The first blast on Tuesday occurred in Baqouba, 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, when a car parked in front of a restaurant exploded just before noon across the street from the central courthouse and other government offices. Many of the victims were people visiting the government offices, petition writers helping people with documents in stalls outside or the occupants of cars that were caught in the explosion as they passed through the area, witnesses said. Several cars and minibuses were set ablaze, while more than 10 shops and the restaurant were heavily damaged. One survivor described a huge fire that sent black smoke billowing into the sky and left charred bodies inside their cars. "I was on my way to the government office when a big explosion occurred near site," said the witness, who would only identify himself by his nickname Abu Ali. "As I approached the site, I saw cars on fire, burned bodies and damaged shops damaged with shattered glass everywhere." At least 40 people were killed and 70 wounded in the blast, according to hospital officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information. News footage showed many of the bodies covered in crisp white sheets in the main hospital's courtyard while the emergency room inside was overwhelmed with the wounded. The US military in northern Iraq gave a slightly lower toll, saying 35 Iraqi citizens were killed, including a policeman, and 66 wounded in the attack. It also said three buses were destroyed and 10 shops were damaged. It was the deadliest bombing in Iraq since March 6 when a twin bombing killed 68 people in a crowded shopping district in the central Baghdad district of Karradah. A suicide attacker on a motorcycle later drove up to a kebab restaurant in Ramadi and detonated his explosives vest around 12:30 p.m., killing at least 13 people including three policemen and wounding 20 other people, police Capt. Abu Saif al-Anbari said. Hospital officials said two children were among the dead. Police initially thought a parked car had exploded in the industrial area but later determined it was a suicide attack, al-Anbari said. Several people were badly injured and the blood seeped through their bandages as they lay on stretchers or the floor in the packed emergency room at the hospital. Ahmed al-Dulaimi, a 27-year-old mechanic was at the restaurant when the blast occurred but escaped injury because he was sitting at a back table. He said his cousin, who owned the restaurant, had been killed. "Pieces of flesh flew into the air and the roof fell over us. I saw the horrible sight of bodies without heads or without legs or hands," he said. Ramadi, 115 kilometers west of Baghdad, is the capital of Anbar province and has largely been sealed off by checkpoints. Like Baqouba, the area has seen a sharp decline in violence in recent months as Sunni tribal leaders have joined forces with the Americans against Al-Qaida in Iraq. Meanwhile, the purported leader of the Al-Qaida umbrella group the Islamic State of Iraq called on the US-allied Sunni fighters who switched sides to return to the insurgency. In an Internet audiotape posted on Tuesday, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi urged them to direct their arms against "the Crusaders and those who support them," using typical militant rhetoric for the United States. The US has described al-Baghdadi as a fictitious character used to give an Iraqi face to an organization dominated by foreigner Al-Qaida fighters. The US military said overall attacks in Diyala province have dropped more than 76 per cent since June 2007. "Although attacks such as today's event are tragic, it is not indicative of the overall security situation in Baqouba," Maj. Mike Garcia, a spokesman for US forces in Diyala, said in a statement. A parked car bomb also targeted a police patrol in central Baghdad, killing four civilians who were passing by and wounding 15 other people, police said. Elsewhere in northern Iraq, a double car bombing in Mosul wounded three Iraqi policemen and 15 civilians, the US military said. Mosul is considered one of the last urban strongholds for Al-Qaida in Iraq and the American and Iraqi militaries have promised a security crackdown. The relative calm in predominantly Sunni areas has coincided with clashes between Shiite militia fighters and US-Iraqi forces in Baghdad and the oil-rich southern city of Basra. But while the Bush administration has begun citing what it calls Iranian-backed Shiite factions as the greatest threat to Iraq's stability, American commanders have consistently warned that Al-Qaida-led insurgents continue to pose a serious danger. Two car bombs and a suicide attack also killed 18 people in northwestern Iraq on Monday. In other violence Tuesday, US soldiers backed by an airstrike killed six militants during clashes in the Sudayrah area near Baghdad's main Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, the military said. Iraqi police in the area claimed that two boys were among those killed in the airstrike, but the military said no civilian casualties were reported. Lt. Col. Steve Stover said separately that American troops killed four militants who fired rocket-propelled grenades at a tank elsewhere in the area. Clashes also broke out later on Tuesday in Sadr City, leaving four militiamen killed and 15 others wounded, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.