A series of bomb attacks in Baghdad early yesterday killed 12 people and wounded at least 31, government sources said.
In the deadliest attack a small truck parked near the passport office on Magreb Street in the north of the city killed 12 and wounded 20, defense and interior ministry sources said.
Several people suffered burns as flames from the powerful blast swept skywards, damaging buildings, they said.
Meanwhile, on Palestine Street in the center of the Iraqi capital, a roadside bomb wounded nine including six civilians as a police patrol passed.
A third attack thought to have targeted government vehicles wounded two civilians in the southeastern neighborhood of al-Ghadir.
The rush hour strikes were the first attacks in the city since last Monday when three suicide bombers believed to be women blew themselves up among the pilgrims in the capital, killing at least 25 and wounding around 75.
The attacks came as Iraqi lawmakers held intense, last-minute negotiations ahead of a special parliamentary session aimed at defusing a crisis over Kurdish demands to incorporate the disputed city of Kirkuk and surrounding areas into their autonomous region.
Parliament adjourned for a one-month summer recess last week but agreed to hold a special session Sunday to try to resolve the standoff and approve a new election bill.
Underscoring the importance of the Kirkuk issue, US President George W. Bush telephoned the Sunni parliamentary speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani and Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi to urge a resolution, according to statements yesterday from their offices.
Thousands of people staged a noisy rally in Iraq’s northern city of Hawija on Saturday to protest against fresh moves to incorporate Kirkuk Province into the autonomous Kurdish region.
Kirkuk has been gripped by ethnic tension since the US-led invasion of 2003, with Arab and Turkmen residents fearful they would be marginalized if the city were handed over to the Kurds.
A suicide bombing and ensuing panic gunfire killed at least 27 people and wounded 126 last Monday during a mainly Kurdish rally protesting against the provincial election law that promises to tackle these concerns.
The US military in Iraq said yesterday that one of its soldiers died in a road accident north of Baghdad — the first troop fatality this month — while two other soldiers were charged with the murder of an Iraqi detainee.
The military said in a statement that the vehicle accident on Saturday, which left another US soldier injured, was under investigation.
The fatality brings to 4,128 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003.
US SOLDIERS CHARGED
In other developments, the US military said that Staff Sergeant Hal Warner and 1st Lieutenant Michael Behenna were charged on Saturday with premeditated murder, assault, making a false official statement and obstruction of justice.
“The charges followed a criminal investigation into the death of Ali Mansur Mohammed, a detainee initially believed to have been released by coalition forces on or about May 16,” the statement said.
A pretrial investigation for Warner is to start on Aug. 15 at a base near Tikrit while the date for Behenna’s pretrial investigation has not yet been set.
In other developments, US troops transferred security responsibilities in the southern Baladruz area of Diyala Province on Saturday, a military statement said.
“The Iraqis are ready to take over this area. Our people are ready to come back to their homes and support the coalition and Iraqi forces,” Baladruz police chief Colonel Faris Radi said.
The Diyala Province, stretching from the eastern outskirts of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has been the scene of a major military crackdown against Sunni insurgents.
Renegade groups from the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are also active in the province, which has a mixed population of Sunni and Shiite Arabs as well as Kurds and other ethnic minorities.
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