A car bomb killed 36 civilians and wounded 72 in a Shiite district of east Baghdad on Sunday, a day after an inaugural meeting to start reconciling Iraq’s rival factions produced little tangible result.
Another car bomb exploded in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least 15 people near a court house, police and witnesses said.
The Baghdad bomb, near a police station and open-air market, was in the Sadr City neighborhood, a poor area that is a stronghold of Shiite militias. Three weeks ago, a car bomb at a market in the same area killed about 60 people, one of a number of very bloody incidents this month that have raised fears of civil war.
Shattered vehicles and stalls showed the power of the latest blast. Blood lay in pools. Some witnesses spoke of a suicide bomber driving a minivan but police said the cause was unclear.
There were also heavy clashes in the district overnight between the Mehdi Army of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and U.S.-led forces, residents and police said.
The U.S. military said in a statement that Iraqi troops raided a site in mainly Shiite eastern Baghdad targeting two people believed to be involved in “death squads” -- a term usually applied to Shiite militia activity.
It said eight people were detained after a battle involving machineguns and grenades and that two Iraqi hostages were freed.
Two other people were arrested in a similar raid in northwestern Baghdad, the military said.
Show of solidarity
On Saturday, leaders held the inaugural meeting of the Higher Committee for Dialogue and National Reconciliation, in a show of sectarian and ethnic solidarity before a White House visit by the prime minister. But many remain pessimistic about the chances of tackling rising bloodshed.
The biggest party from the Sunni Arab community, which forms the backbone of a raging insurgency against a Shiite-led, U.S.-backed government, did not join the talks.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will visit Washington to meet President George W. Bush on Tuesday, after a stop in London on Monday, where he is expected to discuss ways of improving security in Baghdad, which is gripped by sectarian violence fuelling fears of civil war.
U.S. commanders have said they are considering sending more troops to Baghdad, whose 7 million people represent a rich and volatile mixture of all of Iraq’s communities.
With violence rising, the U.S. is moving to bolster American troop strength in the capital, putting on hold plans to draw down on the 127,000-member U.S. military mission in Iraq.
U.S. officials have pointed to Shiite militias as a major cause of sectarian violence. In a bid to curb militia influence, American troops moved Saturday against the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad.
Signs of despair
Maliki, a tough-talking Islamist, strongly urged Iraqis to embrace peaceful politics during a break from the talks in Baghdad’s heavily fortified government headquarters.
“Those who oppose the political process want to return to dictatorship,” he told a news conference, standing beside the president, a Kurd, and the Sunni speaker of parliament.
So far, Maliki’s 24-point reconciliation plan, long on promises but short on detail, has failed to stem the violence, which the United Nations says may be killing 100 people a day.
Iraq leaders have admitted they despair of being able to avert all-out civil war. “Iraq as a political project is finished,” a top government official told Reuters.
Iraqi and U.S. officials now believe sectarian militias are killing more Iraqis and pose a greater security threat than the insurgency, though this is still a major destabilizing force.
The U.S. military said its troops, backed by Iraqi troops and police, killed 15 fighters in a three-hour gunbattle near a Shi’ite mosque at Mussayab, south of Baghdad. Two U.S. soldiers were also killed around Baghdad on Saturday.
Bush is under pressure to show progress in Iraq, clearing the way for U.S. troop cuts, as his Republicans face elections in November with their control of the U.S. Congress at stake.
Five weeks after Bush visited Baghdad to give his blessing to the new Maliki government, thousands of Iraqis have been killed in suicide bombings and communal attacks.
