quote:
A suicide car bombing today and clashes between Shia militia and Iraqi security forces have left up to 50 people dead.The deaths followed bombings and shootings yesterday in which more than 60 people were killed across the country, from the northern city of Kirkuk to the capital Baghdad and south to Basra.
In the city of Diwaniyah, a Shia-dominated city 80 miles south of Baghdad, gun battles between Iraqi forces and militiamen of the Mahdi Army loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr left at least 34 people dead and about 70 wounded, Iraqi officials said.
The fighting broke out late last night when Iraqi soldiers conducted raids in three neighbourhoods to flush out the militiamen and seize weapons, Captain Fatik Aied, of the Iraqi army, said. The fighting continued today.
Mohammed Abdul-Muhsen of Diwaniyah general hospital said 34 bodies were brought in - 25 Iraqi soldiers, seven civilians and two militiamen. He said at least 70 people were injured.
Capt Aied said the militiamen were using rocket-propelled grenades and automatic assault rifles. At least 10 militiamen had been arrested, he said. [...]
In Baghdad, a car suicide bomber crashed into a police checkpoint outside the Interior Ministry this morning. The blast could be heard more than a mile away and smoke could be seen rising from the scene.
A police spokesman, Ahmed Mohammed Ali, said the blast killed 16 people, including 10 policemen. He said 18 policemen were among the 47 people wounded.
Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb in the mainly Sunni western neighbourhood of Jihad hit a car carrying five barber shop workers, killing one person and seriously wounding another four, a police spokesman said.
In one of the deadliest weekends for the US military in recent months, eight American soldiers were killed on Saturday and Sunday in and around Baghdad, seven of them by roadside bombs and one by gunfire.
Still, US military authorities said there was less violence than before.
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posted 28 August 2006 01:49 PM
