Baghdad car bombs kill 11

Car bombers have struck twice in rapid succession in Baghdad, killing at least 11 people including an American soldier, as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that violence may increase before the January election.

Rocket-propelled grenade explosions and machine gun fire rocked the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, late last night.

Residents said insurgents launched attacks in a half dozen parts of Ramadi, and that four huge explosions shook the centre of the city.

Iraq’s most feared terror group – Tawhid and Jihad – claimed responsibility for yesterday’s near-simultaneous car bombings, one near an east Baghdad police academy and the other outside an east Baghdad market as an American military convoy was passing by.

At least 16 people were wounded.

An American soldier was fatally injured in the convoy attack and one Iraqi was wounded in that attack. The Kindi Hospital said it received 10 bodies from the police academy blast, and police said 15 others were injured there.

The dead at Kindi hospital included three police academy students and a female officer.

In a statement posted on the Web, Tawhid and Jihad, led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the car bombings were carried out by its military wing and were ”martyrdom” operations, meaning suicide attacks.

Improvised bombs – some left by the side of the road, others rigged in vehicles – have become insurgents’ weapon of choice in turbulent Iraq and have accounted for about half the American battle deaths in recent months.

US officials are struggling to build up Iraq’s own security resources to cope with the threat.

Al-Zarqawi’s group also warned it would continue “to slaughter infidels” until the Americans and their Iraqi allies release all women detained in Iraq. The warning was part of a message contained in a videotape posted on the web depicting the brutal decapitation of hostage Kenneth Bigley.