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.
A suicide driver 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 in a
statement. 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 that sold chemicals and flammable liquids, police said.
Scenes at local hospitals were gruesome. Victims young and old 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.
It was the fourth car bombing this month in Kirkuk, the center of Iraq's vast
northern oil fields. Tensions have been rising in Kirkuk because the area's
Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen all have rival claims to the region.
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.
The Sadr City car bombing was the second major suicide attack this month in
the teeming slum district, where al-Sadr's Mahdi militiamen rule the streets. A
July 1 suicide bombing in Sadr City was followed by a wave of reprisal killings
of Sunnis.
Many Sunni politicians hold the Mahdi Army responsible for the wave of
attacks against Sunnis that followed the Feb. 22 bombing at a Shiite shrine in
Samarra. Al-Sadr's aides deny that the militia is doing any more than protecting
Shiites from attacks by Sunni extremists including al-Qaida in Iraq.
So feared is the militia among Sunnis that many of them refer to any band of
armed, masked Shiites as the Mahdi Army.
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 Sadr City raid, and two people were arrested
in Shula, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
U.S. officials made no mention of al-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.
Last week, British troops arrested the commander of Mahdi Army forces in
Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. On Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed 15
fighters in a three-hour gunbattle around al-Sadr's office in Musayyib, 40 miles
south of Baghdad. One Iraqi soldier was killed, the U.S. said.
Local officials also said U.S. and Iraqi troops Saturday raided al-Sadr's
office in Mahmoudiya, scene of reprisal killings since suspected Sunni gunmen
killed 50 people, mostly Shiites, in a raid last week on a market.
In Najaf, a senior al-Sadr lieutenant claimed the Americans want to crush the
radical cleric's movement because he is the most prominent Shiite leader to
oppose the U.S. military presence.
"We are the only group that rejects the occupation because we are
nationalists," said Jalil al-Nouri. "We are the only political group that
rejects their presence in the country and we demand that they leave. We are to
the point, and we are clear."
Al-Sadr, scion of one of Shiite Islam's most prominent clerical families, led
two uprisings against the Americans in 2004. The U.S. stopped short of capturing
him under pressure from the Shiite clerical hierarchy.
After a cease-fire, al-Sadr has emerged as a major political force. He
controls a movement modeled after Hezbollah in Lebanon, running charities,
clinics and an armed militia. Al-Sadr's followers hold 30 of the 275 seats in
parliament and control five Cabinet ministries including health, transportation
and agriculture.
Although al-Maliki has pledged to disband the militias, he relies on al-Sadr
for political support. The prime minister's Dawa party was founded by al-Sadr's
father-in-law, who was executed under Saddam Hussein.
