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Car bomb attack targets Shiites, kills 15 civilians, wounds 45 in Sadr City

A bomb in a parked car exploded late on Saturday in the Shiite stronghold Sadr City, killing 15 people, officials said.

The bombing was the first against Shiites in Baghdad since last week, when the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his militia to halt all attacks. It was one of three attacks against al-Sadr's supporters on Saturday.

A roadside bomb struck Shiites in the holy city Kufa, al-Sadr's base, killing five people. In Najaf, a drive-by shooting took the life of a tribal sheik who works closely with al-Sadr's office in Najaf, said Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman at the office.

The bomb in Baghdad, set between a market and a police station, killed civilians passing by as they did their shopping for the week. It wounded 45 people.

The last several days have been relatively quiet in Baghdad. However, it was unclear whether the calm would last, as the holy month of Ramadan, often marked by a surge in violence, begins this week. Some fear that extremists are holding their fire now to make a bigger attack during the holy month.

Iraqi police found 11 unidentified bodies around Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.

In Diyala Province, more than 400 families have returned to their homes in different parts of the capital, Bakubah, since the US military operations there in July, an Iraqi police officer in Diyala said.

However, scattered violence continued in the province, with eight civilians killed in several incidents and three unidentified bodies found by the police, a police official said. Extremist Sunni Arab groups have been active in Diyala, and there has also been sectarian fighting between Sunni Arabs and Shiite militias.

In Kirkuk, eight civilians were killed and police found two unidentified bodies. The fighting in that city and the surrounding province of Tamim has been mostly between Kurds and Arabs. The insurgent group al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia has also been active there.

An incident on Saturday gave a measure of the brutality that has become increasingly common in the northern province. Four members of a family in Dakok, south of Kirkuk, were killed at close range when they met with the kidnappers of one family member's son, said Captain Taher Mahmud, a police official in Dakok.

The kidnappers had called the young man's family and said they were prepared to release him. They then shot the family members when they arrived to pick the hostage up.

In Baghdad, parliament voted unanimously on Saturday to extend until the end of the year the work of the committee recommending changes in the Constitution.

The extension is a measure of the difficulties faced by the political factions in parliament as they try to agree on a way to divide oil revenues, determine the status of the northern city of Kirkuk and delineate the powers of the presidency.
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