More bodies found after Baghdad attacks

Rescue crews pulled bodies from the rubble of bombed buildings today, the day after a barrage of co-ordinated attacks across eastern Baghdad neighbourhoods killed at least 64 people and wounded more than 280 within half an hour, police said.

The latest spasm of violence last night – which included explosives planted in apartments, car bombs and several rocket and mortar attacks on mainly Shiite neighbourhoods – came as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said Iraqi forces should have control over most of the country by year’s end.

The toll from the Baghdad bombings stood at 64 people dead and 286 wounded, police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani said this morning.

The attacks centred on neighbourhoods controlled by Shiite militias, some of which Sunni Arabs accuse of running death squads.

Attackers rented apartments and shops in buildings a few days ago and planted explosives in them, detonating the devices by remote control almost simultaneously yesterday evening, Maj. Gen. Jihad Liaabi, director of the Interior Ministry’s counterterrorism unit, told state television last night.

The attacks occurred between 6pm and 6:30pm and included a car bomb at a market, another behind a telephone exchange building and several rocket and mortar attacks, police said.

This morning residents picked through the rubble of their homes, using blankets to carry their belongings out. Large chunks of concrete and burned out cars littered the street.

Kindi hospital – one of four where the wounded and dead were taken – received dozens of casualties.

Haidar Nassier, a resident of al-Ameen district, said an explosion had ripped through a clothes store in his neighbourhood.

“My neighbour, four of his children were injured, and one of them died,” he told AP television outside the hospital.

The bloodshed was part of a violent week that has left hundreds of Iraqis dead.

But authorities said they were optimistic about the handover of security control.

Maliki said Iraqi forces will assume responsibility for Dhi Qar province in the south this month, making it the second of Iraq’s 18 provinces that local forces would take control over.

Iraqi authorities took over Muthanna province in the south from the British in July, and Maliki said he hoped that by the end of the year, Iraqi security forces would take over most of the provinces.

Dhi Qar is populated mainly by Shiite Muslims, and has seen much less violence than areas such as Baghdad.

However, US commanders are concerned about the growing influence of Shiite militias in the area.

The Defence Ministry said it would sign a memorandum with coalition forces on Saturday “about strategic control and operations.” US authorities said the Defence Ministry would begin assuming direct operational control of the country’s armed forces.

In Kirkuk province, about 180 miles north of Baghdad, two battalions of the Iraqi army’s 4th Division took over control of the majority of the province from the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division, coalition forces said in a statement Friday.

The city of Kirkuk and at least one village will remain under the US-led coalition’s control.

Handing over control to Iraqi authorities is a key part of any eventual drawdown of US troops.

On Wednesday, the top US commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, said Iraqi troops were on course to take over security control from US-led coalition forces over the next 12-18 months with little coalition help.

Despite the rash of violence during the past week, US officials have lauded the results of a security crackdown in the capital that they say has resulted in a dramatic fall in sectarian killings.

Statistics obtained by The Associated Press from the Health Ministry show that violent deaths in Iraq dropped significantly in August compared to July. At least 973 violent deaths were recorded as of Wednesday in August, while 3,500 were reported in July.

The crackdown by Iraqi and US forces began on August 7, targeting some of the capital’s most problematic neighbourhoods. In the past, similar operations have lowered violence for short periods of time, but attacks then escalate after American forces leave.

In other violence across the country Friday, according to the police:

:: Iraqi police found the body of Kamil Shateb, a former intelligence officer during Saddam Hussein’s regime, in Kut, 100 miles south-east of Baghdad, a morgue official said. He had been kidnapped the day before and shot in the head.

:: Gunmen shot and killed a policeman in Numaniyah, a town near Kut, after breaking into his house last night.

:: A policeman was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad.