Iraq: A suicide car bomber attacked an elite Iraqi police unit in Baghdad, killing 13 commandos in the worst of a series of violent incidents to hit the country yesterday.
Iraqi police said the car bomber targeted the police commando patrol as they travelled on a highway in the east of the capital. Ten commandos were also wounded, police said. Iraq's al-Qaeda wing later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Yesterday evening a suicide bomber on a motorbike killed himself and six other people when his motorbike exploded in the mainly Shia city of Musayyib, south of Baghdad, police said.
The attacks followed clashes overnight between US troops and Shia militiamen loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the eastern Baghdad district of Sadr City. Police said eight militia fighters were killed and five wounded in the fighting.
Those clashes follow fighting between the militia and British troops in the southern city of Basra last week and could further strain efforts to bring security to Iraq, with US and Iraqi forces already battling a Sunni Arab insurgency.
South of the capital, in Hilla, a bomber on a bicycle blew himself up in a crowded vegetable market, killing four people, including a woman and a child, and wounding 48, police said.
And in western Baghdad, gunmen held up an armoured finance ministry convoy, killing two guards and wounding nine before making off with $850,000 in cash, police said.
The attacks come three weeks before Iraq holds a referendum on a new draft constitution and amid a general increase in unrest, both in central areas and in the southern city of Basra, where around 8,500 British troops are based.
The US military has said it expects a surge in violence in the run-up to the referendum, set for October 15th.
Iraqis are strongly divided over a document that was supposed to unite them and lay the foundations for a more stable future.
In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, more than 1,000 people marched to protest against the constitution, which they say will divide Iraq along sectarian lines by giving too much autonomy to Kurds in the north and pro-Iranian Shias in the south.
The crowd in Ramadi was largely made up of Sunni Arabs, whose leaders are strongly opposed to the constitution, but also included Shia supporters of Mr al-Sadr, a nationalist young cleric who heads a militia called the Mehdi Army.
The march followed a rally in Basra on Saturday at which several thousand Shias gathered in support of the constitution, which was largely drawn up by the Shia- and Kurdish-led government over Sunni Arab objections.
Sunni Arabs make up about 20 per cent of Iraq's population and dominated the country under Saddam Hussein and before.
They fear the new charter will allow Shias and Kurds to form breakaway regions in the north and the south, where Iraq's vast oil reserves lie, leaving Sunnis with no resources. They also fear the break-up of the entire Iraqi nation, with its religious Shia leaders increasingly allied to Iran and independence-minded Kurds in the north ultimately longing for the creation of a separate Kurdish state. - (Reuters)