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Iraq

Two-day death toll nearly reaches 200 in Iraq

BAGHDAD - Suicide bombers inflicted another day of mayhem in the capital Thursday, killing at least 31 people in two attacks about a minute apart that targeted Iraqi police and Interior Ministry commandos. The carnage left nearly 200 people dead in just two days.

A dozen bombings during a nine-hour spate of terror Wednesday killed at least 167 people and wounded nearly 600 - Baghdad's worst day of bloodshed since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

U.S. officials blamed the bombing onslaught on efforts by the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency to answer the Iraqi army's successful offensive in the northern city of Tal Afar and to undermine the Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's new constitution.

"These spikes of violence are predictable around certain critical events that highlight the progress of democracy," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the chief American military spokesman.

"Remember, democracy equals failure for the insurgency. So there has to be heightened awareness now as we work our way toward the referendum. That's power, that's movement toward democracy."

Al-Qaida in Iraq, headed by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the bombing campaign launched after an Iraqi-U.S. force of 8,500 soldiers stormed Tal Afar, an insurgent bastion, this week.

Zarqawi then purportedly declared "all-out war" on Shiite Muslims, Iraqi troops and the government in what the United States has called a desperate propaganda campaign to derail the political process.

Leaders of the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq have vowed to defeat the constitution, which they say favors the Shiite majority and the Kurds.

Lynch said the joint force killed 145 insurgents and captured 361 in the second operation in a year to rid Tal Afar of militants, including foreign fighters crossing from Syria.

Now, he said, U.S. forces along with the Iraqis were fighting to regain control of the Syrian border, near the western insurgent stronghold of Qaim well to the south of Tal Afar.

Many victims of Wednesday's attacks were killed shortly after dawn when a bomber lured day laborers to his small van with the promise of work, then detonated his explosives in the heavily Shiite Kazimiyah district.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press obtained the text of minor, final changes to Iraq's draft constitution. Two articles in the draft were changed, one was dropped entirely and one was added. Of those, the main change was a new clause noting that Iraq was a founding member of the Arab League, an addition Sunni Arabs sought to underline the country's links with the Arab world.

The dropped passage, which the United States had sought to have removed, gave the constitution precedence over international human rights agreements.

[Last modified September 16, 2005, 01:37:08]