76 are killed, 179 wounded as violence spreads in Iraq
Two Britons killed in mostly peaceful Shi'ite south
BAGHDAD -- A surge in bombings yesterday left at least 76 Iraqis dead and 179 wounded nationwide, prompting worries that intercommunal violence sparked by the bombing last week of an important Shi'ite Muslim shrine could reignite.
This time, violence spread beyond the Sunni Arab provinces and the country's capital, where bomb explosions and mortar rounds shook the city, and to the mostly peaceful Shi'ite south, where two British soldiers were killed.
The US military also reported yesterday that an American soldier was killed by small-arms fire west of Baghdad on Monday, bringing the total number of US military personnel killed in Iraq to 2,292, according to a count compiled by the Associated Press.
Throughout the capital, jittery Iraqi soldiers and police officers riding atop pickup trucks and clutching mounted machine guns rattled neighborhoods with automatic weapon fire. Checkpoints left traffic choked on major roadways.
Explosions continued to sound as night fell and a newly established curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. went into effect. US helicopters and warplanes scoured the skies after each blast.
Sunni Arab insurgents are waging a campaign of bombing and assassinations against the Shi'ite-led government and security forces, as well as Shi'ite civilians.
Calmed by senior clergy, the Shi'ite community has generally turned the other cheek, although Shi'ite-dominated security forces have been implicated in extrajudicial kidnappings and killings.
The Feb. 22 bombing of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra, however, has ignited furious reprisals by members of the Shi'ite community. Black-clad militiamen, some with ties to elected political factions and official security forces, allegedly marauded through Sunni neighborhoods, attacking Sunni mosques and killing clergy and civilians.
The unprecedented spasm of sectarian violence of the past week has left at least 379 Iraqis dead and 458 wounded nationwide, according to a statement issued by the office of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Morgue officials in Baghdad said at least 249 had been killed since the Samarra blast. Haidar Safar, a Ministry of Health official in charge of tabulating data from hospitals and morgues across the country, said 519 Iraqis have died of ''unnatural causes," which could include car wrecks and suicides as well as violence, across the country since the blast.
The prime minister's office derided as ''inaccurate and exaggerated" reports by The
Shi'ite clergy have strongly condemned any reprisals against Sunnis after the Samarra blast, and there was little evidence of Shi'ite counterattacks yesterday, despite a barrage of attacks against Shi'ite civilians.
In the day's deadliest attacks, a pair of suicide bomb attacks in the poor, mostly Shi'ite Jadida district left 27 dead and 112 injured. In the first incident, shortly after noon, a man wearing an explosives belt targeted a gas station. Five minutes later, the first of at least five car bombs in the capital exploded near a group of laborers, police said.
A car bomb struck near a small Shi'ite mosque in the Hurriya district of central Baghdad at evening prayers, killing 25 and injuring 43, police and hospital officials said. Another, detonated by remote control near a small market in the mostly Shi'ite Karada district, left six dead and 18 injured. 