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Bomber breaches security, killing 12

By TIMES WIRES
Published April 20, 2007

A suicide bomber breached Baghdad's heavy security presence again Thursday, killing 12 people in a mostly Shiite district a day after more than 230 people died in one of the war's deadliest episodes of violence. The bomber struck within half a mile of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's home in the mostly Shiite Karradah district. Two Iraqi soldiers were among the fatalities. The U.S. military also announced three more troop deaths - two soldiers killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad and a soldier killed the same day in a small arms attack.

Insurgents unveil 'Islamic Cabinet'

A Sunni insurgent coalition posted Web videos on Thursday naming the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, as "minister of war" and showing the execution of 20 men it said were members of the Iraqi military and security forces. The U.S. military and Iraqi government have identified Muhajer by another pseudonym, Abu Ayyub al-Masri. The announcement unveiling an "Islamic Cabinet" for Iraq was apparently to present the Islamic State of Iraq coalition as a "legitimate" alternative to the U.S.-backed, Shiite-led administration.

U.S. walls off warring neighborhoods

A U.S. military brigade is constructing a 3-mile-long, 12-foot high concrete wall to cut off one of Baghdad's most restive Sunni Arab districts from the Shiite Muslim neighborhoods that surround it, raising concern about the further Balkanization of Iraq's most populous and violent city. Construction began last week and is expected to be completed by the end of the month. The wall being constructed in Adhamiya would be the first to essentially divide a neighborhood by sect.

[Last modified April 20, 2007, 00:26:30]