Bombs kill at least nine in Baghdad attacks

A series of explosions rocked Baghdad this morning, killing at least nine people and wounding 26, police said.

Three car bombs detonated within minutes of each other in front of a grocery store in the southern neighbourhood of Dora.

At least five people died and 15 were wounded, a police officer said.

Another bomb exploded in central Baghdad at rush hour, killing four people and wounding 11, two other police officers said.

One said the death toll was expected to rise.

Two of those wounded were policemen, they said.

At least two huge explosions rang out across the area about an hour apart.

Yesterday, a suicide car bomber killed 17 Shiite Iraqis at a teeming Sadr City market, while gunmen in a predominantly Sunni neighbourhood of Baghdad shot at a convoy of democracy workers in an ambush that took the lives of an American woman and three security contractors: a Hungarian, a Croatian and an Iraqi.

The attack on the marketplace yesterday came one day after car bombings killed scores of university students just two miles away, indicating that al-Qaida-linked fighters are bent on a surge of bloodshed as US and Iraqi forces gear up for a fresh neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood security sweep through the capital.

Although nobody claimed responsibility for either day’s car bombings, such attacks are the hallmark of Sunni militants, who appear to be taking advantage of a waiting period before the security crackdown to step up attacks on Shiites

An Iraqi army officer said the attack on the Western convoy took place in Yarmouk, a predominantly Sunni neighbourhood in western Baghdad.

The three-car convoy belonged to the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, according to Les Campbell, the not-for-profit group’s Middle East director.

He said the four dead included an American woman along with three security contractors. Two others were wounded, one seriously, Campbell said.

“It appeared to be an attack with fairly heavy weapons. We don’t know what kind,” Campbell said.

“We have some information that a firefight ensued. Our security company responded to the attack.”

Campbell said the ambush took place at midday as the group returned from a programme elsewhere in Baghdad.

Few foreigners and even fewer women have been caught up in Iraq’s recent wave of violence as many Western groups have left and those who remain have tightened security and curtailed their movements after a series of kidnappings and beheadings.

The last known American female civilian to be killed was Marla Ruzicka, a 28-year-old rights activist from California who died in a car bombing in April 2005.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki did not give a start date when he announced plans for a new drive to tame the violent capital, the third attempt since he took office May 20, but US and Iraqi reinforcements have started to arrive in Baghdad and it is expected to begin in about two weeks.

The marketplace explosion took place just before 4pm near a popular commercial area in Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite district of some 2.5 million people in eastern Baghdad.

The blast shattered the windows of nearby shops and restaurants and blood pooled in the street.

Angry Iraqis surrounded the charred mass of twisted metal, all that was left of the explosives-packed car. They tipped the remains on its side and picked off pieces of blackened upholstery.

At least 17 people were killed and 33 people were wounded, police said.

In many parts of the capital, streets were crowded with cars and minivans carrying wooden caskets of the victims from Tuesday’s car bombings, which killed at least 70 people and wounded more than 130 at Al-Mustansiriya University.

Many vehicles were headed to the holy city of Najaf where Shiites prefer to bury their dead. Other victims were taken to a Sunni cemetery in central Baghdad.

The students were from all the country’s religious sects.

Hussein Mohammed, a lecturer in the university’s French language department, said classes were cancelled for two days while workers cleared the debris. “We are trying to heal our wounds and start again,” he said.

The Iraqi parliament stood for a moment of silence and politicians and students demanded stepped-up security for schools and universities.

Maliki announced the new security drive on January 6, four days before US President George Bush detailed his version of the plan with an announcement that he was sending 21,500 more US troops to Iraq.

There have been concerns that insurgents would just slip out of the capital to wait out the offensive.

Some appear to have left, given the spike in violence in northern Iraq, where Sunni militants have retreated in the past.

Yesterday, a suicide car bombing at a police checkpoint in oil-rich Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, killed 10 people and wounded dozens.

In all, police reported 70 people killed or found dead in Iraq yesterday. They included 31 bullet-riddled bodies that turned up in Baghdad showing signs of torture, victims of apparent death squads largely run by Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army, which has its stronghold in Sadr City.

The US military also said two more American soldiers died, one yesterday after suffering wounds during an operation in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province west of Baghdad and another who died there on Monday.

Maliki, meanwhile, met the ambassadors of several countries, including the US, to shore up support for his planned security operation.

He pledged to act equally against all gunmen, regardless of sect, his spokesman said. The Shiite prime minister is under heavy criticism over his interference in US attempts to confront Shiite militias during two failed attempts to bring calm to Baghdad.

“We want the international community to understand that the Baghdad security plan is targeting all the outlaws. It does not target a specific group or specific area. Rather, it targets all Baghdad,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the spokesman.

Throughout the Middle East, Arab leaders were deeply sceptical of the US plan for Iraq, a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to sell it to them. Kuwait’s emir told Rice that America should work with Iran and Syria, officials said, a move Bush has rejected.

The National Democratic Institute, the group whose convoy was attacked yesterday, supports democratic processes and institutions worldwide.

Its staffers in Baghdad run training programmes in democracy and political participation, as well as women’s rights. The group has had staff in Iraq since June 2003, but Campbell would not specify how many, for security reasons.

Kenneth Wollack, president of the organisation, said in his Washington office: “This is a tragedy that has hit individuals that have been dedicated to the democratic future of Iraq.”

The American woman was the first full-time worker for the group to be killed in Iraq. A security contractor for the organisation was killed in March 2004.