At least 31 people were killed in a bomb attack yesterday targeting poor Shiites seeking work as laborers, as the US military announced the death of the 100th service member killed in Iraq this month.
Three gunmen also killed a leading Iraqi academic and prominent Sunni political activist as he was leaving his Baghdad home, police said yesterday.
The explosion in the sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City tore through food stalls and kiosks at about 6:15am, cutting down men who gather there each morning hoping to be hired as construction workers.
At least 51 people were also injured, according to police Major Hashim al-Yasiri.
Ali Abdul-Ridha, injured on his head and shoulders, said that he was waiting for a job along with his brother and about 100 others when he heard a massive explosion and "lost sight of everything."
Abdul-Ridha said the area had been exposed to attack because US and Iraqi forces had driven Mehdi Army fighters loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who usually provide protection, into hiding.
"That forced Mehdi Army members, who were patrolling the streets, to vanish," the 41-year-old Abdul-Ridha said from his bed in al-Sadr Hospital, his brother lying beside him asleep.
However, Falih Jabar, a 37-year old father of two boys, said the Mehdi Army was responsible for provoking extremists to attack civilians in the neighborhood of 2.5 million people.
"We are poor people just looking to make a living. We have nothing to do with any conflict," said Jabar, who suffered back wounds.
The US and Iraqi military have kept a tight cordon around Sadr City since a raid there last week in search of an alleged Shiite death squad leader, who was not found.
Along with rising civilian casualties, this month is already the fourth-deadliest for US troops since the war began in March 2003.
The US military identified the latest casualty as a Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5.
It said he died in combat on Sunday in Anbar Province, west of Baghdad.
The gunmen who shot Essam al-Rawi, head of the University Professor's Union and a senior member of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, escaped by car after the attack, police Lieutenant Maitham Abdul-Razaq said.
The Muslim Scholars Association is a hardline Sunni organization believed to have links to the insurgency raging against US forces and their Iraqi allies.
Meanwhile, in Kirkuk, a suicide bomber exploded a belt of dynamite he was wearing inside a police station at around noon yesterday, killing one policeman and one civilian and wounding 13 people, police Brigadier Sarhat Qadir said.
Political tensions deepened further on Sunday when Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the country's ranking Sunni politician, threatened to resign if Prime Minister Nouri al-Malikidid not move swiftly to eradicate militia groups.
Mohammed Shaker, a key aide to al-Hashemi, said the threat was intended to send a message to the government over the rising sectarian violence.
"We cannot live with this situation indefinitely," Shaker said.
At least 26 policemen were killed on Sunday, including 17 in one attack in the predominantly Shiite southern city of Basra.
Gunmen dragged 15 policemen and two translators -- instructors at the Basra police academy -- off a bus at the edge of the city on Sunday afternoon.
Their bodies were then found dumped throughout the city beginning about four hours later.
"I confirm that 15 policemen and two translators were killed," said Major General Abed Khudhir Al-Tahir, head of Basra's security committee. "We are currently investigating the driver in bid to find the actual culprits."
The murders will be seen as a huge setback for British efforts to pacify southern Iraq, which hinges on training Iraqi security forces to enable them to take over responsibility for an area rife with illegal militia groups.
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