Car bombs kill 'at least 16' in Baghdad

Car bombs killed at least 16 people and injured dozens others in Baghdad and a Shiite holy city today, dashing hopes that the formation of a new government alone would provide a quick end to the country’s violence.

At least 25 others were killed or found dead today, including a US Marine who was wounded in the insurgent bastion of Anbar province in western Iraq, police and the US military said.

Some of the victims appeared to have been abducted and killed by sectarian “death squads” that target members of rival religious communities. The dead included three brothers whose charred bodies were found before dawn in Baghdad’s Dora district, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area and one of the city’s most violent.

The deadliest single attack occurred when a suicide driver detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi army patrol leaving its base in the Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Azamiyah, killing 10 people and injuring 15, most of them Iraqi soldiers, said police Lt Col Falah al-Mohammedawi.

Minutes earlier a car bomb exploded near the Baghdad offices of the state-run al-Sabah newspaper, killing a civilian employee, said police Lt Ahmed Mohammed Ali said. Officials believed the target was a police patrol which passed by shortly before the blast.

In Karbala, a Shiite holy city 60 miles south of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle near the main provincial government building, killing five people and wounding 19, said police spokesman Rahman Mishawi.

The bomber was unable to reach the government building because of concrete barricades and a police cordon and instead set off his explosives about 300 yards away, police said.

Elsewhere, three policemen were killed in a roadside bombing in the northern city of Mosul, police said. Two bodies with gunshot wounds were found in the centre of Mosul tonight.

In Baghdad, police and unknown gunmen battled for nearly an hour in the capital’s Saydiyah district. Three policemen were wounded and three gunmen were arrested, police said.

The rise in violence has cast doubt on hopes that the formation of the new national unity government alone would bring a speedy end to Iraq’s violence.

The framework of the new government was put in place last month with the selection of a president, vice presidents, prime minister and parliament speaker. Incoming Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, hopes to president his Cabinet to parliament by Wednesday.

However, a top Shiite official said al-Maliki would probably not meet that target because of differences among the parties over who will run the ministries of interior and defence.

Those posts control the police and the army, and US and British officials have insisted that the new ministers have no ties to militias believed responsible for sectarian kidnappings and killings of civilians.

Sectarian violence has forced about 14,700 Iraqi families – or about 88,000 people – to flee their homes, a senior Iraqi official said. Suhaila Abed Jaafar, doubted they could return without “concerted military action” to restore order in their communities.

“The solution is in the hands of the interior and defence ministries,” said Jaafar, the minister responsible for caring for displaced Iraqis.

The latest spate of killings come after “up to five” British personnel died in Saturday’s helicopter crash in Basra. British officials have not confirmed Iraqi police and witness reports that the Lynx helicopter was shot down.

Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, was calm today after a day of violence.

In a bid to ease tension, Basra Gov Mohammed al-Waeli agreed to resume cooperation with British authorities, which he broke off four months ago after British troops cracked down on policemen with links to Shiite militias.

In other developments:

:: Gunmen killed a man as he headed to work at a wholesale market in southwestern Baghdad.

:: A police sergeant was shot dead as he was leaving home in Baghdad’s mainly Shiite neighbourhood of Kamaliya.

:: Bodies of 11 other men were found in various parts of Baghdad, including eight in a garbage container in eastern Baghdad.

:: Gunmen killed a cigarette vendor and two policemen in separate shootings in west Baghdad.