Car bombs kill more than 70 in Iraq

BAGHDAD, April 15 (Reuters) - Two car bombs killed more than 50 people in Sunni Arab areas of Iraq on Tuesday, a sudden spasm of violence in places which had been comparatively quiet while battles raged in the Shi'ite south.

Suspicion in the attacks will fall on al Qaeda, given the Sunni Arab militant group's history of using car bombs.

In one of the deadliest strikes in months, one car bomb killed 40 people and wounded 80 outside a provincial government headquarters in Baquba, local capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad, police said.

Police said the blast killed people on the busy streets and in their cars as they were passing the location. Women and children were among the victims.

U.S. forces put the death toll at 36, with 67 wounded. It said three buses were destroyed and 10 shops damaged.

"These acts are intended to inflict fear into the local population and are just another example of the cruelty of the anti-Iraqi insurgency," a U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq, Major Peggy Kageleiry, said in a statement.

Medical sources said ambulances struggled to get the wounded to hospitals because of the sheer number of victims.

A second car bomb, believed to be driven by a suicide attacker, exploded outside a popular restaurant in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding 14 others, a hospital source and police said.

Diyala, a multi-ethnic region, has been the scene of operations against al Qaeda by U.S. and Iraqi forces in recent months.

The strikes were a reminder of the instability in the Sunni Arab areas at a time when attention has been focused on fighting in Shi'ite areas that erupted last month.

Al Qaeda fighters have often sought sanctuary in these areas to help them blend in and take advantage of Sunni grievances.

But besides attacks on security forces and officials, they have also frequently exploded car bombs in public places to cause as much carnage as possible, irrespective of which sect bystanders are from.

Most U.S. troops in Iraq are deployed in Sunni Arab areas, which have become quieter over the past year. But commanders say militant groups like al Qaeda still have the capability of staging large-scale strikes.

NEW CAMPAIGN?

Tuesday's attacks could signal a new campaign by Sunni Arab militants. On Monday, a suicide attacker and two car bombs killed 18 people in northern areas where al Qaeda is active.

Al Qaeda militants have regrouped in provinces north of Baghdad such as Diyala after being pushed out of Anbar and the capital by a "surge" of U.S. forces in Iraq over the past year.

Nevertheless, the U.S. military said overall violence in Baquba had fallen by 80 percent since June.

In Baghdad, fighting over recent weeks has been dominated by clashes between Shi'ite fighters and U.S. and Iraqi troops. Fresh battles erupted overnight.

The U.S. military said it had killed at least 10 fighters in Sadr City, the east Baghdad stronghold of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover said U.S. forces in a tank killed four militants in a separate incident.

Police reported at least six people killed and 26 wounded in Sadr City clashes, which have trapped frightened residents in their homes for weeks.

Fighting in Shi'ite areas in Baghdad and the south has been more intense than at any time since the first half of 2007, thrusting the Iraq war back to centre stage in the U.S. presidential campaign. (Additional reporting by Peter Graff, Aws Qusay and Aseel Kami; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)






---------------
CHRONOLOGY-Deadliest bomb attacks in Iraq 15 Apr 2008 15:12:13 GMT
Source: Reuters
April 15 (Reuters) - Car bombs on crowded streets killed more than 50 people in Sunni Arab areas of Iraq on Tuesday.

Here is a list of some of the deadliest bomb attacks in Iraq in the past year:

March 6, 2007 - Two suicide bombers strike in Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing 105 pilgrims. Insurgents launch a total of 12 attacks against Shi'ite pilgrims. In all, 137 pilgrims are killed and 310 are wounded.

March 27 - A truck bomb explodes in Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border and the regional capital Mosul, killing 152 people.

April 18 - Multiple car bombings kill 191 people around Baghdad. One car bomb near a market in the central Sadriya neighbourhood kills 140 people and wounds 150.

April 28 - A suicide car bomber kills 60 people and wounds 170 at a checkpoint in Kerbala.

May 13 - Suicide truck bombing in northern town of Makhmour kills 50, with 70 people wounded.

June 19 - A car bomb near the Khilani Shi'ite mosque in central Baghdad kills 87 people.

July 7 - A truck packed with explosives covered with hay blows up in a crowded market in the northern town of Tuz Khurmato, killing 150 people and wounding 250.

July 16 - Eighty-five people are killed by a suicide truck bomb in the city of Kirkuk. At least 180 are wounded.

Aug. 14 - At least three suicide bombers driving fuel tankers kill and wound at least 796 people in Yazidi residential compounds in the villages of Kahtaniya and al-Jazeera in northern Iraq near the Syrian border, the worst attack since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Yazidis are members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect who live in northern Iraq and Syria.

Feb 1, 2008 - Female bombers kill 99 people in attacks blamed on al Qaeda at two popular Baghdad pet markets, the city's worst attacks in six months.

Feb 24 - A suicide bomber targeting pilgrims heading to one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest rites in southern Kerbala kills 63 people and wounds scores in Iskandariya.

March 6 - Two bombs explode in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Karrada district, killing at least 68 people. Another 120 were wounded in the blasts.

April 15 - A car bomb kills 40 people and wounds 80 outside a provincial government headquarters in Baquba, local capital of Diyala province. Another car bomb, believed to be driven by a suicide attacker, explodes outside a popular restaurant in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, killing 13. (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)