Suicide bombs cause Iraq carnage

The deadliest bombings were in Tikrit, where at least 33 died, and the town of Hawija, where at least 32 were killed.

Suicide bombings and shootings rocked Baghdad, killing at least four people.

The attacks continue an upsurge in violence that has claimed more than 400 lives since the start of May, as US forces fight rebels in the west.

Laith Kubba, an Iraqi government spokesman, told the BBC that rebels were lashing out wildly, knowing their "days are numbered".

But the insurgency appears to be gathering pace rather than running out of steam, the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says.

The attacks came a day after the US Senate unanimously approved an emergency spending bill authorising a further $82bn for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other activities.

Police targets

Wednesday's wave of bombings began in the northern city of Tikrit - Saddam Hussein's hometown, which is dominated by Iraq's minority Sunni Muslim community.

At least 33 people were killed and about 70 injured in a car bombing in a crowded marketplace, police said.

The bomber had apparently been targeting a police station, but police forced him to swerve into the market.

Almost all the dead are said to be Shia Muslim civilians who had gathered to look for work.

Ibrahim Mohammad, a migrant worker who saw the explosion, called it "a tragedy", Reuters news agency reported.

"Some [bodies] were burned, some were ripped to pieces."

The militant group Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the Tikrit attack, saying it was aimed at migrant workers employed by a nearby US base.

At least 32 people were killed and dozens wounded soon afterwards, when a suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body hit a police and army recruitment centre in the northern town of Hawija.

The bomber reportedly mingled with recruits before setting off his explosives, a tactic that has been used at least twice before in recent weeks, our correspondent says.

"I was standing near the centre and all of a sudden it turned into a scene of dead bodies and pools of blood," police Sgt Khalaf Abbas told the Associated Press news agency by telephone.

"Windows were blown out in nearby houses, leaving the street covered by glass."

Some casualties were taken to Kirkuk, the nearest city, because Hawija does not have the means to care for them, AP reported.

Kidnappings

There were also at least four explosions in Baghdad, including a suicide car bombing in the Dura district that killed three people other than the bomber and injured at least eight.

Baghdad was also the scene of an attack on a police patrol in the Mansour district that killed two policemen and a civilian, Reuters reported.

It was unclear if a third car bombing, and a roadside bomb aimed at a US convoy, caused any deaths.

Not since 28 February - when 125 people died in a massive car bombing in Hilla - have insurgents killed so many Iraqis in a single day.

US forces have been mounting a major counter-insurgency operation in the western province of Anbar, where they say they have killed about 100 rebels in the past several days.

The insurgents deny suffering such heavy losses.

The governor of Anbar was kidnapped on Tuesday and rebels have demanded that the US stop its operations.

A number of foreigners are also being held hostage - among them an Australian engineer seized in Baghdad in late April and a Japanese security contractor captured on Sunday.

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More than 60 people were killed in Iraq today when at least five explosions rocked Baghdad, Tikrit and Hawija.

The most deadly of the attacks took place in Hawija, 150 miles north of the capital, where at least 30 people were killed and 35 wounded outside a police and army recruitment centre. Police said a man with explosives hidden under his clothes set them off while standing in a queue of job applicants. Further south in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, at least 27 were killed and 75 injured when a suicide car bomb exploded near a police station, police said.

Meanwhile, three car bombs exploded in Baghdad killing four and wounding 14. At least 370 people have been killed in Iraq over the past two weeks in the latest wave of violence.

Police first thought the powerful blast in Hawija was caused by a car bomb, but police Major Sarhad Qadir later said they later found it was an attacker waiting in a queue of about 150 recruits.

"I was standing near the centre and all of a sudden it turned into a scene of dead bodies and pools of blood," said police Sgt Khalaf Abbas. "Windows were blown out in nearby houses, leaving the street covered by glass."

Sgt Qadir said 30 people were killed and 35 were wounded, including about 15 who were in a critical condition.

Hawija's recruitment centre is located in a building surrounded by cement walls topped with barbed wire in an effort to prevent attacks by car bombs. Job hunters often line up outside such centres early in the morning to apply for work at a time of high unemployment in Iraq. They are a key target for insurgents intent of hampering the US goal of replacing American troops with newly trained Iraqi soldiers and police.

Hawija is a small town with few facilities, so some of the casualties were taken by ambulance to hospitals in Kirkuk, 34 miles to the north-east.

In Tikrit, a mostly Sunni city and Saddam Hussein's home town, police said a suicide car bomber drove into a crowd after failing in an attempt to target a police station.

The bomb exploded at 7.15am (0415 BST) when many day labourers were waiting at a market to be picked up for work at local construction sites, police Lt Col Saad Daham said.

Of the three car bombs in Baghdad, the deadliest blast occurred in the southern neighbourhood of Dora near a police station, killing three civilians and wounding nine, said police Col Salam Alak.

In Yarmouk, an area of west Baghdad, a suicide car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in Jordan Square, killing a woman civilian and wounding three policeman, said police Lt Col Kadhim Abbas.

In New Baghdad, an eastern area of the capital, a car bomb exploded near al-Darweesh bakery about 100 metres from a police patrol, wounding two civilians and damaging civilian cars parked nearby, said police Lt Col Ahmed Aboud.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1481213,00.html

At least 81 Iraqis have been killed and more than 150 wounded in a series of bomb attacks in northern Iraq and Baghdad, security officials said.

The bloodshed on Wednesday came as a 1000-strong US force backed by aircraft battled fighters in the west of the country in an operation that the military said had killed up to 100.

A car bomb killed 38, mostly civilians, and wounded 84 in a busy market area of Tikrit, near the hometown of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, about 180km north of Baghdad.

In Hawijah, northeast of Tikrit, a bomber wearing a belt of explosives struck outside an army recruitment centre, killing 35 and wounding 33, the army and medical sources said.

The Ansar al-Sunna group linked to al-Qaida claimed the bomb attacks in statements posted on its website.

"Your brothers planted a car bomb in a Tikrit public square used by dozens of apostates working on the local US base, and exploded it," said a message, attributed to the group, referring to Iraqi security forces.

Responsibility claim

Another Internet statement whose authenticity also could not be verified said "a hero of Islam, Abu Abd Allah al-Turkmani, blew himself up among a group of apostates of the Iraqi national guard at a recruitment centre in Hawijah".

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, at least three people were killed and 10 wounded in two separate explosions, one of them outside the Dura police station in the south of the city, police said.

Seven other Iraqis were killed in attacks across the country.

Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and five others were wounded in an afternoon attack on their convoy in western Baghdad, a Ministry of Interior source said.

Elsewhere, a police captain was killed by four armed assailants in Baquba, 60km northeast of Baghdad, said police lieutenant-colonel Kassem Muhammad.

And a man blew himself up as he tried to sabotage an oil pipeline, said lieutenant-colonel Saad Mahmud, near the oil city of Kirkuk, about 250km north of Baghdad.

Basra explosion

In Basra, a bomb planted near a pipeline that supplies gasoline to a large Iraqi fertilizer plant exploded, killing one employee, wounding more than 20 and starting a fire that heavily damaged the factory, police and a security guard said.

Black smoke billowed for hours from the South Fertilizers plant before firefighters managed to put out the blaze, which destroyed about 60% of the plant, police said.

The plant was considered one of the largest fertilizer factories in the Middle East.

Anti-US fighters have stepped up attacks this month since Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari formed Iraq's first elected government in more than half a century.

Since the beginning of May, more than 400 people have been killed in car bombings and other attacks.

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