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Iraq

Deadly car bombings rock central Baghdad

BAGHDAD - Two car bombs ripped through a crowded street in front of the Interior Ministry in central Baghdad on Thursday, killing 18 people and wounding three dozen. Al-Qaida in Iraq said it carried out the attack, the bloodiest in more than a month.

In a statement posted on the Internet, the group, headed by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the attack targeted a patrol outside the office of Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib, who is in charge of the nation's police. The claim could not be independently verified.

Naqib was in his office when the explosions occurred but was not injured. The ministry building, built by Saddam Hussein's government to survive major attacks, was not damaged.

Meanwhile, a video broadcast on al-Jazeera TV showed a man who identified himself as a Pakistani diplomat kidnapped last weekend in Baghdad. The Arab satellite station said the man urged the Pakistani government and international community to intervene and secure his release.

The station said the kidnappers, identified as being from the previously unknown group Amuriya Brigade, made no demands for his release.

Malik Mohammed Javed, deputy charge d'affaires at the Pakistani mission in Baghdad, was last seen Saturday leaving his home for prayers. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry had said the Omar bin Khattab group claimed responsibility and demanded money for his release. The video broadcast Thursday couldn't be independently verified, and the discrepancy between the groups' names couldn't be explained.

The death toll from Thursday's car bombs was the highest from an explosion since March 10, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shiite mosque during a funeral, killing 47 people.

After clearing the area, U.S. forces set off a third car bomb. Nobody was injured in that blast.

An Interior Ministry official, Capt. Ahmed Ismael, said the first two blasts killed 18 people and wounded 36.

It was the latest attack claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq. On Tuesday, the group claimed responsibility for clashes with U.S. soldiers in the Syrian border town of Qaim, and on Wednesday it claimed an attack on a U.S. convoy that killed five Iraqis and wounded four U.S. contract workers on Baghdad's airport road. None of the claims could be verified.

In northern Iraq, seven gunmen riding in two vehicles fired on the police station just south of Kirkuk shortly after dawn, killing five police officers and one civilian, police Brig. Sarhat Qadir said.

Militant group Ansar al-Sunnah claimed responsibility in an Internet posting, and said it had teamed up with Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq for an attack Wednesday in Kirkuk.

BAGHDAD - Investigators have discovered several mass graves in southern Iraq that are thought to contain the bodies of people killed by Saddam Hussein's government, including one estimated to hold 5,000 bodies, Iraqi officials say.

The graves, discovered during the past three months, have not been dug up because of the risks posed by the insurgency and the lack of qualified forensic workers, said Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's interim human rights minister.

Information from the New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified April 15, 2005, 00:50:05]