Bombings kill at least 33 in Iraq

22 Jun 2009 15:01:04 GMT
Source: Reuters
* High school students die in one blast

* Bombings follow deadliest attack in more than a year

* Attacks ahead of U.S. withdrawal from towns and cities

(Updates toll, adds Baghdad security spokesman)

By Abdul Rahman Dhaher

BAGHDAD, June 22 (Reuters) - A bomb devastated a minibus carrying students to their final exams in Baghdad on Monday, one of a string of blasts across Iraq that killed 22 people just two days after the deadliest attack for more than a year.

The explosions came as U.S. combat troops prepare to withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities by the end of June. The attacks sow doubts about the local security forces' ability to stand alone against a stubborn insurgency.

Blood and shattered glass covered the floor of the minibus in Sadr City in eastern Baghdad after a roadside bomb killed three high school students and wounded 12 others. They had been on their way to sit final exams before the summer holidays.

"What did these students do to deserve this? They're not politicians, Americans or policemen to be attacked," said witness Mohammed Yezen.

Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb in a market killed three people and wounded 30 in the northern Shaab district, police said, while a parked car bomb killed five people and wounded 20 in Karrada in the city centre.

The blasts came two days after a suicide truck bomb outside a mosque near the northern city of Kirkuk killed 73 people in the country's deadliest attack for more than a year.

MALIKI'S REPUTATION

Violence has broadly fallen in Iraq over the last year, but analysts have said attacks are likely to intensify ahead of a parliamentary election due in January.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has built his reputation on cutting violence, and has lauded the partial withdrawal of U.S. troops. In Baghdad, authorities have started to remove the concrete blast walls that have blighted the city for years.

In the west of the capital, a suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday outside the municipal council building in Abu Ghraib, killing seven people and wounding 13, police said.

Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Moussawi said five people were killed and 41 wounded in the bombings in the capital. He gave no explanation for the lower figure.

In more violence near Kirkuk, a roadside bomb killed a member of a Sunni Arab anti-Qaeda militia, police said. Also in the north, the army said a roadside bomb killed three soldiers near Khanaqin, a town claimed by Arabs and Kurds.

(Writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Daniel Wallis)


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Jun 22, 2:00 PM EDT

Attacks kill 33 in Iraq as violence intensifies

By PATRICK QUINN
Associated Press Writer
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AP Photo/Hadi Mizban
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BAGHDAD (AP) -- Bombings and shootings killed at least 33 people in Baghdad and surrounding areas on Monday, including a group of high school students on a bus headed for final exams, as violence intensified before a planned withdrawal next week of U.S. troops from urban areas.

The bombings, nearly all in Shiite areas of the capital, came just two days after the year's deadliest attack - a truck bombing that killed at least 75 people in northern Iraq.

Overall violence has declined drastically over the past two years, but the recent attacks have raised concerns about the Shiite-dominated government's ability to provide security around the country without the immediate help of the U.S. troops remaining in Iraq. More than 100 people have died in three days of bloodletting, mostly from bombings but also from shootings.

Starting June 30, most of the 133,000 American troops left here will be housed in large bases outside the capital and other cities - unable to react unless called on for help. The withdrawal is part of an agreement under which all U.S. troops are to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

The reclusive Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on the Shiite-led government to take whatever steps necessary to protect Iraqis from attacks. But in a statement, the anti-American cleric blamed the violence on the continued presence of U.S. troops in the country and demanded a faster withdrawal.

"The Iraqi people are heading toward a new phase that might lift them out from their suffering," the cleric said in a statement. He also called on his followers to remain peaceful.

Last August, he ordered militiamen of his Mahdi Army to lay down their arms and take up social work. The edict came just after U.S. troops working with Iraqi soldiers routed the militia in its stronghold in Baghdad's Sadr City.

In that Shiite bastion, a roadside bomb exploded next to a bus carrying high school students to their final exams on Monday, killing at least three people and wounding 13, including three of the students, police said. The bomb peppered the bus with shrapnel and left the floor of the vehicle littered with blood-soaked textbooks.

The U.S. military said only one civilian was killed and eight wounded. Conflicting casualty tolls are common in the aftermath of bombings in Iraq as victims are often taken to multiple hospitals.

At least five people also were killed and 20 were wounded by a bomb planted near a car in the central Karradah district of the Iraqi capital, on the east side of the Tigris River. The bomb exploded on a road leading to a checkpoint that controls access to a bridge into the Green Zone, which houses the Iraqi government and U.S. Embassy.

The U.S. military put the casualty toll at two killed and six wounded.

Another roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in a commercial area of eastern Baghdad's Ur district, killing three and wounding 25, according to police, although the U.S. military said just two were killed.

A suicide car bomber then targeted the mayor's offices in Abu Ghraib, a predominantly Sunni district west of Baghdad.

The explosion occurred when the car struck a civilian vehicle before reaching the government building, damaging a nearby U.S. vehicle that was providing security for a meeting, said Maj. David Shoupe, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.

He said four civilians were killed and 10 people were wounded, including three U.S. soldiers, while a local police officer said seven civilians were killed and 13 wounded.

North of the capital, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol, killing three Iraqi soldiers near Khanaqin, near the Iranian border, according to the security headquarters in Diyala province.

And north of Baghdad, a parked motorcycle loaded with explosives blew up in an open-air public market in the predominantly Shiite area of in Husseiniya, killing five people and wounding another 22, police and hospital officials said.

Gunmen also killed at least seven people in separate attacks in the northern city of Mosul, including a woman and four Iraqi security forces, according to separate police reports.

The Iraqi officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

In northern Iraq, rescue crews were searching for at least 12 people still missing in a massive explosion Saturday near the ethnically tense city of Kirkuk that flattened a Shiite mosque and dozens of mud-brick houses around it.

Iraqi police have blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for the attack, saying it was part of an insurgent campaign to destabilize the country and undermine confidence in the government.

Americans will remain ready to help, as they were in the aftermath of Saturday's bombing, but many Iraqis fear their departure after two years of a steady urban presence will prove deadly.

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Associated Press Writer Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report.