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At least 30 die as wave of violence sweeps Iraq

Detained Iraqis sit on the ground blindfolded during Operation Casablanca in the Dora district of southern Baghdad on Monday. About 500 US soldiers in combat vehicles swooped before dawn on a 7km stretch of farmland in the district in search of suspects involved in deadly attacks on US troops, rounding up 52 people, including 39 women and children, for interrogation. The military later released 50 of the detainees. PHOTO: AFP

Iraqi insurgents set off bombs and fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at military convoys, checkpoints and police patrols in a spate of violence that killed 33 people and wounded dozens.

The terror group al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for much of the bloodshed on Monday.

As the attacks persisted, so did negotiations to form Iraq's first democratically elected government. Iraqi Kurds said they were close to a deal with the Shiite clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance to secure many of their territorial demands and ensure the country's secular character after its National Assembly convenes March 16.

The dominant Shiite Muslim alliance, however, said although it agreed that Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani would become Iraq's president, it was still talking about other conditions set by the Kurds for their support in the 275-member legislative body.

The Shiite alliance controls 140 seats and need the 75 seats won by the Kurds in the Jan. 30 elections to muster the necessary two-thirds majority to elect a president and later seat their choice for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

An alliance official said interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose party won 40 seats, refused an offer for a Cabinet post. Allawi's office could not be reached for comment.

"Iraqis defied the terrorists and they went to the polling stations in order to see their elected representatives meet and debate the future of the country," interim Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a Kurd, said of the decision to convene the assembly.

The wave of violence came as Dutch troops ended their mission in the southern city of Samawa and turned command of the area over to the British, along with responsibility for 550 Japanese soldiers. The Dutch government last year decided to pull out its final 350 troops, despite requests from Britain and the US.

Another ally, Bulgaria, demanded Monday that the US investigate what appeared to be a friendly fire incident Friday that killed one of the 460 Bulgarian soldiers in Iraq. Although Bulgaria's defense minister said the death would not lead to a withdrawal, his government must decide this month whether to keep troops in Iraq past July.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq purportedly claimed responsibility in an Internet statement for much of the bloodshed that killed 15 people Monday in and around Baqubah, 55km northeast of Baghdad. The assaults included a car bomb, three roadside bombs and small arms attacks on three checkpoints, one of them just south of Baqubah in Muradiyah, said police Colonel Mudhafar al-Jubbori.

A car bomb also killed 12 people in Balad, southeast of Baqubah.

In Baghdad, gunmen killed two police officers and wounded a third, while two civilians were killed when a roadside bomb targeting a joint US-Iraqi military convoy exploded in the Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriyah.

In Baghdad's Doura district, gunmen killed Mahmood Khudier, a former Iraqi army officer, while a man was killed in a mortar attack.
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