Attacks Aimed At GIs In Iraq On Rise
Two car bombs exploded Thursday in Baghdad, killing 10 people and injuring 16, officials said. Iraq's prime minister insisted the country's forces were ready to take over security duties in most provinces despite rising violence.
Also Thursday, U.S. officials confirmed that the number of roadside bombs directed against U.S. and Iraqi forces increased sharply last month, dramatizing the threat posed by the Sunni-led insurgency despite attention directed to sectarian violence in the capital.
The parked car exploded a little after noon near a market in Sadr City, Baghdad's biggest Shiite neighborhood, damaging many shops besides inflicting the casualties, said police Lt. Adil Salih.
Residents said the casualties were low because most people had finished their shopping early to escape the 120 degrees Fahrenheit heat that was forecast for Baghdad on Thursday.
The Iraqi army general command said in a statement that seven people were killed and 15 injured.
A second car bomb missed a police patrol in Mansour neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing three bystanders and wounding a fourth, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.
Sadr City, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood, is one of the most tightly secured areas in Baghdad, patrolled by police as well as members of the Mahdi Army militia of the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The security is to prevent attacks by Sunni insurgents, but the latest attack demonstrates the difficulties of controlling the seething sectarian violence, which has risen steadily since the Feb. 22 explosion at a Shiite shrine in Samarra. The bombing triggered a wave of reprisal killings and has raised fears of an all-out civil war.
In other developments:
The sectarian violence has diverted attention from the threat posed by Sunni Arab insurgents. But recent figures suggest that the insurgency is gaining strength despite setbacks, including the June 7 death of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in an air strike northeast of Baghdad.
U.S. officials said in July, a total of 2,625 explosive devices exploded or were discovered before they could detonate. That was up sharply from the 1,454 bombs that went off or were discovered in January.
Of the bombs discovered in July, 1,666 of them exploded and the rest were detected. About 70 percent of them were directed at U.S.-led forces. Twenty percent were directed at Iraqi security forces and 10 percent against civilians, the officials said.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release figures, which were first reported by The New York Times.
Still, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said government forces are ready to take over the country's security in most areas, a statement from his office said.
It quoted al-Maliki as telling the visiting Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico: "Iraqi forces are capable of taking over the security in most of the Iraqi provinces and will be able to fill the vacuum if the multinational forces withdraw." He did not elaborate.
Fico, who arrived Thursday on a 24-hour visit, had said last month that he plans to bring back the country's 104 soldiers, but gave no timetable. They are deployed in the southern Qadisiyah province, and are expected to hand over their duties to Iraqi forces, al-Maliki said.
Deputy Health Minister Adel Muhsin said Wednesday that about 3,500 Iraqis died in July in sectarian or political violence nationwide, the highest monthly death toll for civilians since the war started in March 2003.
Last week, the ministry said about 1,500 violent deaths were reported in the Baghdad area alone in July. U.S. commanders are rushing nearly 12,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops to the capital to try to end the carnage.