06 Apr 2009 11:07:05 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Six bombs cause carnage across Iraqi capital
* May be reaction to crackdown on Sunni guards-analyst
(adds another bomb, paragraph 6, updates toll)
BAGHDAD, April 6 (Reuters) - Six car bombs exploded across Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 34 people and wounding scores, police said, after a spate of arrests targeting Sunni Arab fighters raised tensions in the Iraqi capital.
A blast at a popular market in eastern Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City slum killed at least 10 people and wounded 65.
Another car bomb blew up next to a group of labourers queuing for work, killing six people and wounding 16.
Two other blasts shook a market area of Husseiniya, on Baghdad's northern outskirts, killing four, and a street in eastern Baghdad, apparently targeting the convoy of an Interior Ministry official, killing one of his guards and a bystander.
"The explosion caused major damage to buildings and they even hurt some children," shopkeeper Abdul-Jabar Saad said of that attack, which he witnessed. "God damn these people."
Hours after the four early explosions, south Baghdad's Um al-Maalif neighbourhood was shaken by two separate blasts in the same market, killing 12 bystanders and wounding 25 others.
The latest spate of lethal attacks followed a week of arrests in Baghdad by Iraq's Shi'ite-led government of Sunni Arab fighters known as Awakening Councils, or Majalis al-Sahwa in Arabic.
Interior Ministry officials declined to comment on whether the bombs were a coordinated strike or a reaction to the arrests, one of which sparked clashes on Saturday between Iraqi forces and supporters of their arrested Sahwa leader.
The government insists it is only detaining those wanted for grave crimes, but the fighters -- many of them former insurgents -- fear it is settling sectarian scores.
Analyst Kadhum al-Muqdadi, a professor at Baghdad University, said such a connection was "not unlikely".
"Any security action carries the risk of a reaction," he told Reuters. "These could be the work of Sahwas or just of opportunists exploiting this issue."
The Sahwas first switched sides and joined with U.S. forces to battle Sunni Islamist al Qaeda in late 2006, manning checkpoints and conducting raids throughout the country.
The Iraqi government started taking control of their operations late last year, but mistrust between the two runs deep. Some of the guards complain they have not been paid for two months, although Iraqi officials say that was an administrative glitch that has now been fixed.
Iraqi and U.S. officials say a small number of the 90,000-odd Sunni guards have been infiltrated by al Qaeda and other insurgent groups.
Overall violence has fallen in Iraq to levels not seen since late 2003, but militants still carry out frequent, large-scale bomb attacks, especially in the capital and the northern provinces of Diyala and Nineveh. (Reporting by Aseel Kami; Additional reporting by Hadir Abbas; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Katie Nguyen)
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Series of bombings in Baghdad Shiite areas kill 36
AP - Monday, April 06, 2009 10:54:13 AM
By HAMID AHMED
Series of bombings in Baghdad Shiite areas kill 36
AP
Six bombs rocked Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad on Monday, killing 36 people and wounding more than 110 in a dramatic escalation of violence as the U.S. military is thinning out its presence before a June 30 deadline to pull combat troops out of the cities.
Angry survivors hurled stones at Iraqi soldiers at the site of one of the blasts in Sadr City after troops fired shots in the air to disperse crowds of people trying to care for the injured, witnesses said.
No group claimed responsibility. But a U.S. military spokesman said the attacks appeared to be a coordinated assault by al-Qaida, saying the nature of the targets was consistent
Twelve people were killed in a market in western Baghdad when two car bombs exploded almost simultaneously, while 32 others were wounded, an Iraqi police official said.
Burned hulks of cars and twisted metal were scattered across the marketplace, as Iraqi soldiers and police officers surrounded the bombing site, driving off onlookers and journalists.
The day's violence started with a car bomb at 7:30 a.m. in the center of the capital that killed at least six people and wounded 17, said a police official, who said most of the victims were day laborers seeking work.
Later, a bomb in a parked car exploded at a market in the Shiite slum of Sadr City, also killed 12 people, including three women and four children, and wounded 37 others, said Iraqi police and medical officials. Within minutes, another bomb went off at another eastern Baghdad market, killing three more people and wounding 15, said a security official.
A roadside bomb targeting a three-vehicle police convoy carrying an Interior Ministry official in eastern Baghdad killed three people, including two of the official's guards, and wounded 12 others, said another police official.
Anger against Iraqi security forces boiled up after the blast in Sadr City, scene of heavy fighting last year between U.S.-Iraqi forces and militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Adnan al-Sudani, 37, said he and others rushed to the scene of the blast as black smoke billowed from the bombing site.
"We saw several people dead, and some were burned. We began to lift them along with the wounded into civilian cars to take them to nearby hospitals," he said. "When Iraqi army forces arrived, they began firing randomly on people to disperse them. But angry people began to throw stones at them."
U.S. officials insist that violence has fallen by 90 percent since the high point in 2007, but a recent uptick in attacks has raised concern that extremists may be regrouping.
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Series of bombings in Baghdad Shiite areas kill 36
AP - Monday, April 06, 2009 10:54:13 AM
By HAMID AHMED
Series of bombings in Baghdad Shiite areas kill 36
AP
"The nature of the attacks and targets are consistent with past al-Qaida in Iraq attacks," said a U.S. spokesman, Maj. David Shoupe. "We see this as a coordinated attack by terrorists against predominantly Shia targets that they gauge as vulnerable to instigate sectarian violence."
The U.S. military has begun to remove troops from Baghdad before the June 30 deadline for leaving the cities, as required by the U.S.-Iraq security agreement that took effect this year.
Tension has been increasing in Baghdad in recent weeks between the Shiite-led government and mostly Sunni paramilitary groups that the U.S. organized to provide security
Last month, Iraqi troops put down an uprising by a paramilitary group in central Baghdad that began after their leader was arrested. The paramilitaries, known as Awakening Councils or Sons of Iraq, also complain that a number of their members have been arrested in what they fear is an attempt to marginalize them.
Also Monday, the U.S. military announced that a U.S. soldier was killed in action the day before in Diyala province, where insurgents remain active.
It was the first combat death suffered by U.S. forces in Iraq since March 16, when a soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.
Also in Diyala province, unidentified gunmen killed two Kurds Sunday night in a drive-by shooting in Jalula, 80 miles (125 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi army Capt. Sarjo Ahmed said Monday.
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Associated Press Writer Chelsea J. Carter contributed to this report.
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