A new wave of suicide attacks and car bombings across Iraq
killed at least 24 people and wounded some 60 others on Monday,
while Baghdad is preparing to host a second round of talks between
the US and Iran on Iraqi security.
US soldiers secure the site
where a car bomb exploded in central Baghdad's Karrada
neighborhood. At least 24 people were killed on Monday in Iraq,
including 12 in two Baghdad car bomb attacks.
A series of car bombings rocked Baghdad in the day, killing at
least 17 Iraqis and wounding 57 others, shaping a setback in the
five-month US and Iraqi security plan which aimed at curbing
insurgency and sectarian violence.
Two car bomb explosions ripped through Baghdad's central
neighborhood of Karradah in a quick succession, killing at least 10
people and wounding 38 others.
One of the car bombs was parking near a police headquarters in
Karradah neighborhood and the other was near a market in the same
neighborhood.
Around midday, a third car bomb struck a police patrol near the
Sahat al-Wathiq square in the same neighborhood on the east side of
the Tigris River, killing two people and wounding six others,
including three policemen.
The explosion damaged several nearby civilian cars and
buildings.
Another car bomb went off in the afternoon near an office
affiliated to the Iraqi Ministry of Housing in Karradat Mariam
district, killing four people and wounding six others.
The explosion occurred just about 400 meters away from an
entrance to the Green Zone, a vast area on the west bank of the
Tigris River which houses the Iraqi government offices and foreign
embassies, including the US embassy.
Earlier in the day, an explosive charge inside a minivan
detonated in the morning in the Kifah Street in Baghdad's
neighborhood of Fadhel, killing a passenger and wounding seven
more.
The Kifah thoroughfare in the Sunni enclave of Fadhel surrounded
with Shiite neighborhoods has been the scene of sectarian
violence.
In Ramadi, a woman wearing an explosive-belt blew herself up in
the al-Shaheed Nawfal police checkpoint in the city of Ramadi and
killed all the seven policemen in the site.
The same checkpoint was the target of another suicide attack on
Sunday night when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car
into the checkpoint and blew it up, wounding three policemen.
In addition, the Iraqi police said that its patrols picked up 24
unidentified bodies from Baghdad's streets during the past 24
hours.
The bullet-riddled bodies were bound, blindfolded, showing signs
of torture, they said.
Also on Monday, the US military said that three of its soldiers
were killed and two others wounded in separate roadside bomb
attacks across the country in the past few days.
The latest deaths bring the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq
to more than 3,630 since the outbreak of Iraq war in 2003,
according to media count based on Pentagon figures.
The latest wave of violence came as the Iraqi capital prepared
to host a second round of talks on Tuesday to discuss the
deteriorating security situation in Iraq.
"Iraq will host the second round of US-Iranian talks on the24th
of this month," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told
reporters on Sunday.
Zebari also expected that the upcoming talks between the two
rivals, following up on the first meeting in May, could achieve
"tangible results."
US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker met his Iranian counterpart
Hassan Kazemi Qomi on May 28 in Baghdad in an effort to find
solutions for Iraqi security problems. However, the landmark
meeting ended without substantial achievements.
The US army has frequently accused Iran of arming and training
Shiite militia in Iraq, including providing materials of
sophisticated armored-piercing bombs. Iran has denied the
claims.
(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2007)
