Baghdad, Iraq – Insurgents launched attacks Saturday in Baghdad and northern Iraq, killing 11 Iraqis and wounding more than 40 in a second day of violence aimed at shaking the newly formed government.
At a meeting of Iraq’s neighbors in Turkey, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the violence was “not solely the concern of the Iraqis but ours as well.”
Some of the worst attacks occurred in Iraq’s capital, still reeling from Friday’s onslaught in which at least 17 bombs exploded across Iraq, killing 52 people, including five U.S. soldiers.
At least five car bombings occurred in the Baghdad area Saturday, U.S. military spokesman Greg Kaufman said. He had no information on casualties.
They included a suicide attack that targeted a joint U.S. military and Iraqi police patrol in western Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounding seven, including four policemen, police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said.
Minutes later, another suicide bomber plowed into a civilian convoy near the offices of the National Dialogue Council, a coalition of 10 Sunni Arab factions that had been negotiating for a stake in Iraq’s new Shiite- dominated government.
The blast killed at least one council guard and injured 18 Iraqis, said police Capt. Kadhim Abbas at al-Yarmouk Hospital.
A third suicide car bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol exploded near the Mohammad Rasoul Allah Mosque in eastern Baghdad, killing two women and a girl and seriously wounding four soldiers, police Lt. Col. Ahmed Abboud Effait said.
Two Iraqis – a policeman and a former official in Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party – also died in shootings Saturday in Baghdad, police said.
U.S. officials hoped the government approved Thursday and set to take office Tuesday would help dent support for the militants within the Sunni Arab minority that dominated under Hussein and is believed to be driving the insurgency.
However, the lineup of Cabinet ministers named by Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al- Jaafari after months of political wrangling excluded Sunnis from meaningful positions and left the key defense and oil ministries in temporary hands.
Insurgents also launched six strikes in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, including one that injured an American soldier, the U.S. military said. At least three Iraqis were killed and eight wounded in the attacks, according to police 1st Lt. Mahmoud Arif Yahya.
