Winks Blog

12 Iraqis Killed 17 Wounded , 4 Bodies Found

Good Morning,

In violence Thursday:

_A car bomb exploded at a northern gas station, killing 10 people who gathered around the vehicle after discovering a corpse inside. Seven others were injured in the blast near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, police Capt. Arkan Ali said.

_A car bomb exploded in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing one person and wounding seven.

_The bodies of four men were found in two areas in eastern Baghdad.

_Gunmen assassinated a former official of Saddam's Baath party in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric urged his followers Thursday to refrain from reprisal violence against Sunnis, his strongest call yet for an end to increasing sectarian bloodshed. The statement by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani came as U.S. military officials reported a 40 percent increase in the daily average of attacks in the Baghdad area.

U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said there has been an average of 34 attacks a day against U.S. and Iraqi forces in the capital over the past five days. The daily average for the period June 14 until July 13 was 24 a day, he said.

"We have not witnessed the reduction in violence one would have hoped for in a perfect world," U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said at a news briefing Thursday. "The only way we're going to be successful in Baghdad is to get the weapons off the streets."

Caldwell said militias and death squads have responded to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's call for a crackdown by intensifying attacks to derail Iraq's new unity government.

Last month, al-Maliki announced a security plan for Baghdad, including up to 50,000 police and soldiers on the streets, more checkpoints, and raids in neighborhoods where violence is high. But with surging attacks in the capital _ including the kidnapping of high-ranking Iraqi officials _ leading politicians from Shiite and Sunni parties have declared the plan a failure.

The government said Thursday that al-Maliki had dismissed security officials for failing to respond to a Monday attack south of Baghdad in which at least 51 people were killed. Suspected Sunni gunmen went on a rampage through a market in Mahmoudiya, shooting at shoppers and vendors. Most of the victims were Shiites.

Al-Maliki's office said an undisclosed number of security officials would be replaced and that teams would be sent to examine a water shortage that has led to public discontent.

Shiite politicians complained that local police and soldiers failed to respond to the attack until the gunmen fled.

Have a nice day.

posted by Wink @ 9:57 AM