Suicide bombers cause more carnage

A suicide bomber wearing a belt packed with explosives blew himself up outside a bank in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk today, killing 23 people, including pensioners waiting for checks and child street vendors.

A suicide car bomber also rammed his vehicle into an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing five soldiers and wounding two others in Kan’an, about about 30 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi Army Col. Ismael Ibrahim said. Two civilians were also wounded in the attack claimed by the Ansar al-Sunnah Army – affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq.

The US Army celebrated its 230th birthday on a sober note with the killing of one of its soldiers in a roadside bombing that targeted an American convoy in southern Baghdad. The military also announced Tuesday that two soldiers assigned to a Marines unit were killed in a similar attack Monday in the western city of Ramadi.

“Today is a day when we reflect on the heritage of the army and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice, and the latest death in Baghdad is obviously a sad event on our birthday,” US military spokesman Sgt. David Abrams said.

At least 1,704 US military members have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The attack in Kirkuk was also allegedly claimed in an Internet posting by Ansar al-Sunnah, and it came as the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari received a near overwhelming vote of confidence today in the Iraqi National Assembly on a promise to help restore security to violence-torn Iraq.

Al-Jaafari’s 37-member government, announced on April 28, was approved by a show of hands in the 275-member parliament.

Although it has made quashing the insurgency its top priority, al-Jaafari’s government has been criticised for its seeming inability to stop a wave of attacks that have killed more than 1,000 people since its inception.

The spree of killings across the country comes as lawmakers wrangle over how big a say Sunni Arab Muslims should have drawing up the country’s new constitution. The dispute threatens to further alienate Sunni Arabs, who fell from power after their patron, Saddam Hussein, was ousted and detained. Sunni Arabs account for most of the insurgents wreaking havoc across Iraq.

The bodies of 24 men – some of which were beheaded – that had been killed in recent ambushes on convoys in western Iraq were brought to a Baghdad hospital.

Ali Chijan said two batches of bodies were brought to western Baghdad’s Yarmouk Hospital late last night.

Seventeen of the bodies, believed to be all Iraqis were found near Khaldiyah 75 miles west of Baghdad.

Some of the bodies had been decapitated and the others had been shot in the head.