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Bombs kill more than 60 in Iraq

Prime Minister Maliki leaves for talks in the U.S., and a reconciliation summit achieves nothing.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 24, 2006

BAGHDAD - Bombs killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 200 Sunday in Baghdad and the northern oil center of Kirkuk - a dramatic escalation of violence as U.S. and Iraqi forces crack down on Iraq's most feared Shiite militia.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki left Sunday for talks in Washington this week with President Bush to discuss sectarian violence, which has risen sharply since Iraq's national unity government took office two months ago.

The killings have come despite a highly touted Baghdad security plan that includes about 42,500 Iraqi army and police troops and at least 7,200 U.S. soldiers.

About 8:30 a.m., a suicide bomber detonated a minivan at the entrance to a bustling market in Sadr City, the capital's biggest Shiite district and stronghold of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

At least 34 people were killed and 74 were wounded, the Iraqi army said. Eight more people died and about 20 were injured when a roadside bomb exploded two hours later at a municipal building in Sadr City about a half mile from the car bombing, the army said.

In Kirkuk, 180 miles to the north, a car bomb detonated at midday near a courthouse. The courthouse is located among a cluster of wooden shops and stalls, many of which burst into flames, engulfing the warren of crowded streets in roiling black smoke.

Twenty people were killed and 159 were wounded, police said. The tally of injured was so high because many people were trampled as panic swept shoppers, police said. Others suffered burns when the initial blast triggered secondary explosions in shops, police said.

Scenes at local hospitals were gruesome. Victims lay bleeding on stretchers and gurneys, some of them scarred with horrific burns. Many lay unattended as doctors and nurses scrambled to care for the large number of wounded.

The country's political leaders on Sunday attempted to jump-start a process of reconciliation between the country's warring factions. Iraqis hope such talks can stem a further descent into civil war.

But the conference, held in a hotel inside the heavily protected Green Zone, failed to draw or include representatives from insurgent and militia groups currently fueling much of the violence.

Some U.S. analysts and Iraqi policymakers have pushed for a broad amnesty to draw insurgents into the political process. But reconciliation plans have amounted only to talk about establishing committees that would discuss possible "mechanisms," said Warda Pascal, a human rights adviser to Parliament.

Also Sunday, the U.S. military announced that an American soldier assigned to the 1st Armored Division was killed the day before in Anbar province, a bastion of the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

Hours before the Sunday blast, Iraqi troops and U.S. advisers launched raids in Sadr City and the mostly Shiite district of Shula, searching for suspected members of sectarian death squads, a U.S. statement said. Two hostages were freed in the raid, and two people were arrested in Shula, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

U.S. officials made no mention of Sadr or the Mahdi Army in statements about the raids.

"We are not concerned with whom they are affiliated. We are only concerned with taking people responsible for these illegal acts off the streets and will continue to do so aggressively," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said.

However, it was clear that the U.S.-led coalition is stepping up pressure against the Shiite militia in a bid to reduce sectarian violence, which U.S. officials now consider a greater threat than the Sunni-led insurgency.

Also Sunday, the U.S. military announced it has dismissed all charges against a Pennsylvania National Guardsman accused of killing an unarmed Iraqi civilian near Ramadi, finding that the soldier had reason to believe the man had a weapon.

Spc. Nathan Lynn, 21, of South Williamsport, Pa., was accused of voluntary manslaughter and conspiracy to obstruct justice over the death of Gani Ahmed Zaben during a Feb. 15 raid on a suspect's house.

Lynn will return to his unit soon, U.S. military officials in Baghdad said Sunday.

Information from McClatchy Newspapers and the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

[Last modified July 24, 2006, 01:21:10]