At least 15 killed in Baghdad as cabinet vacancies filled

A car bomb has exploded at a busy intersection in central Baghdad as a foreign security convoy drove past, killing at least 17 people, police and witnesses said.

Four Americans were among the 17 people killed in a huge car bomb blast in central Baghdad on Saturday, security and medical sources said.

"According to the latest toll, there are 13 Iraqi civilians killed and four foreigners whose bodies were completely charred," the official said on condition of anonymity.

A medic, Khaled Ibrahim, said: "According to the badges we found, they are Americans."

A US officer on the scene confirmed to AFP that the four were US citizens.

The bodies of the four foreigners, presumed to be security guards, were charred inside the wreckage of their vehicles.

Aljazeera reported 33 others, including four foreigners, were wounded in the explosion.

At least two of the sport-utility vehicles in the foreign convoy were ablaze after the blast, and police pulled charred bodies from the wreckage. One Western man staggered from the scene with blood pouring from his head.

Black smoke billowed into the sky and ambulances converged on the scene, one of the capital's busiest intersections.

Two explosions

Reuters witnesses who were nearby said there were two large explosions, but it was not clear whether the second blast was a car bomb or the fuel tank of a vehicle exploding.

The US military said it had heard the blast, but had no immediate information about the location or cause.

Foreign officials and security contractors move around Baghdad in high-profile convoys of four-wheel-drive SUVs accompanied by armed guards.

They are a frequent target for fighters, particularly on the dangerous airport road.

Over the past weeks, violence has surged in Iraq with a series of bombings, ambushes and bomb blasts.

Aljazeera + Agencies

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DA17BAA8-A3D5-4E5D-838D-9A1BD17D52B2.htm

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 7 - Iraq's new Shiite majority government announced Saturday that it had overcome weeks of wrangling on key cabinet posts, and that it would present nominees for six vacant appointments, including Sunni Arabs to the top posts of deputy prime minister and defense minister, for parliamentary approval on Sunday.

Even as the announcement raised hopes that the end of a political vacuum that has lasted for months would help quell a recent streak of deadly insurgent attacks, a late morning bombing in Baghdad killed at least 22 people, including two people the Iraqi police identified as Americans, and wounded dozens. Among the injured was a group of schoolgirls emerging from a test.

The new appointments will complete the 35-member cabinet of the new prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and raise the number of Sunni Arabs in the government to six. Dr. Jaafari said the names of the new ministers would be withheld until the parliamentary session, but aides said the government would now meet the Shiite leaders' promise that it would be fully representative of Iraq's main ethnic and religious groups, including the restive Sunni minority.

After weeks of false starts and retreats on the formation of the new government, Dr. Jaafari has started his tenure with a reputation for indecision and even weakness among his critics, some of them within the Shiite political alliance that dominates the new government. But this time, he told reporters, the deal on the vacant positions, particularly on the Sunni Arab nominees, is done.

Laith Kubba, a spokesman for Dr. Jaafari, said the Sunni Arab nominees had been approved by "many circles, not one circle." That was an oblique riposte to Sunni critics who have said that the rejection of a cast of cabinet nominees put forward by Sunni groups in recent weeks showed that Dr. Jaafari and others wanted Sunnis amenable to Shiite political goals, not people with strong credibility in their own community.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/international/middleeast/08iraq.html?hp&ex=1115524800&en=43d5f6135c17e81b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Suicide bombers kill 28 in crowded market south of Baghdad, 12 near Tikrit, 14 executed Iraqis found in capital.


KUT, Iraq - A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle in a crowded market south of Baghdad Friday, killing 28 people and wounding 52, medics said.

The bomber detonated his charge in the busy Mokhadar fruit and vegetable market in the centre of Suwayrah, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital, police said.

The blast devastated the crowded market, blowing away stalls and destroying cars.

The town lies in a lawless area where Sunni Arab insurgents have carried out scores of attacks against security forces amid mounting tensions between Sunni and Shiite residents, and reports of tit-for-tat killings.

Another twelve people were killed and three wounded near Tikrit, a hospital source said, when a suicide car bomber rammed a minibus.

Eight policemen and four civilians, including a child, were killed in the attack, Omar Al-Tikriti, a doctor, said.

A police source previously said seven police officers were killed and three wounded in the attack near Tikrit about 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad.

The explosion took place "at around 8 am (04H00 GMT) near an army and police checkpoint on a road leading north out of Tikrit, he said.

"Most of the casualties were aboard a minibus, transporting policemen, which was at the checkpoint," the official said.

Meanwhile, Iraqi police Friday found the bodies of 14 men, hands bound and wearing blindfolds, shot dead with a bullet to the head, in northeastern Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.

"The 14 victims were wearing white dishdashas (traditional Arab gowns) and were unearthed. They all had their hands tied and had been shot in the head," the official said.

Locals alerted the police to the fact that people were using a bulldozer to bury bodies in a vacant lot in the Kisra wa Atash district.

"When the police arrived on the scene, the driver of the bulldozer ran away. We found two bodies on the spot and 12 more when we dug up the area," the official said.

"The bodies are probably a day or two old and we think the unidentified victims come from a rural area," he added.

The interior ministry official explained that the neighbourhood lies on the edge of Sadr City, the impoverished two-million-strong stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, and is controlled by his Mehdi Army militia.

On Thursday, 23 people, mostly police and Iraqi soldiers, were killed in a series of attacks in Baghdad.

Four elite interior ministry commandos were killed in a separate attack Thursday in the restive city of Mosul, 370 kilometres (231 miles) north of the capital.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=13432