US forces fired an artillery barrage at targets in southern Baghdad yesterday while Iraqi rescuers scoured wreckage for the victims of another deadly car bomb that left more than 70 dead.
Tehran, meanwhile, confirmed it would send its foreign minister to an international conference next week in Egypt to discuss the turmoil in Iraq, after several weeks of diplomatic pressure from Baghdad.
As the sun rose over the capital, a series of massive detonations could be heard from southwestern districts, where Iraqi officials said a US operation was under way in support of the city's joint security plan.
"Eighteen rounds of artillery were fired from Forward Operating Base Falcon," said US spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver, without identifying the target of a salvo that could be heard 10km away.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Saturday's suicide bombing near a revered Shiite shrine in Karbalah rose to 71 overnight as scores of victims suffered in hospital wards crowded with 178 wounded.
City health spokesman Salim Khadhim said that the dead included five women, five children and eight victims burned so entirely that their age or gender could not be determined.
The rage in Karbalah after Saturday's attack -- in which protesters were quicker to blame the failure of the Iraqi security forces than the bomber -- underlined Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki 's fragile authority.
The US military said it detained 72 suspects linked to the al-Qaeda network in a series of raids yesterday in the provinces of Anbar and Salaheddin, the biggest daily tally of detentions in many weeks.
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US inspectors pan Iraq reconstruction
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