Skip to main content
U.S. Edition
Search
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WORLD
Iraq Transition

Blasts in Shiite area of Baghdad kill 57

U.S., Iraqi forces launch new sweeps in Iraqi capital

story.iraqhealth.ap.jpg
Iraqi Health Minister Ali al-Shemari's department wants the U.S. to release five men the agency says are guards.

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS

Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A string of bombings in a Shiite Muslim district of Baghdad killed 57 people and wounded 148 on Sunday, police said.

The violence came as Iraqi and U.S. troops launched an extensive sweep of two Baghdad neighborhoods Sunday in an attempt to stop a wave of sectarian killings that has left thousands dead in the Iraqi capital, U.S. commanders said.

Also Sunday, six Iraqis were reportedly kidnapped from a central Baghdad hospital by militants.

Most of the casualties in the series of five explosions that rocked the Shiite Zafaraniya district in southeastern Baghdad over the course of an hour were civilians, including women and children, a Baghdad emergency police official said. The targets included shops, restaurants and a police patrol.

Police said the attackers used a rocket, a car bomb, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle and two other devices to attack the neighborhood between 7:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m. Saturday ET) and 8:30 a.m.

U.S. and Iraqi troops plan to search about 4,000 homes and businesses in Baghdad's Amariya neighborhood, a mostly Sunni district of western Baghdad, with other operations focusing on the Shiite district of Shula to the north.

Shula is a stronghold of the Mehdi Army, the militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and many Sunni residents have moved out in recent months.

The move is part of a two-month-old effort to bolster the Iraqi government's control over the capital. A statement from the American command in Baghdad said Iraqi police and soldiers were backed up by elements of two U.S. Army brigades.

"The operations are designed to reduce the level of murders, kidnappings, assassinations, terrorism and sectarian violence in northwest Baghdad and to reinforce the Iraqi government's control in Iraq's capital city," the news release said.

Several thousand Iraqis have died in Sunni-Shiite violence since the February bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

And Iraq's Health Ministry is demanding the U.S. military release five men the ministry says are guards for the ministry who were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping Iraqi civilians in a predawn raid on a ministry building.

According to the U.S. military, Iraqi soldiers and their U.S. counterparts cordoned off the Ministry of Health complex about 2:30 a.m. Sunday after receiving a tip that six Iraqis had been kidnapped from a Baghdad hospital and taken there.

None of the kidnapped Iraqis were found inside the complex, but five people identified by the tipster were taken in for questioning, the U.S. command reported.

Health Minister Ali al-Shemari is aligned with al-Sadr, who also leads an influential bloc in Iraq's parliament. The ministries of transportation and electricity also have strong ties to al-Sadr.

Cell leader, 16 'gang members' seized

The U.S. military in Iraq announced Sunday the detention of "a key terrorist cell leader" linked to a July bombing in Mahmoudiya.

A military news release said a patrol of soldiers detained the unidentified person during a cordon and search southwest of Baghdad on Thursday.

"The cell leader is directly linked to the July 17 attack on a local market" that killed 40 Iraqis and wounded more than 70, the military said.

Earlier, Iraqi security forces captured 16 "gang members" who were allegedly planning to attack, kidnap or assassinate close relatives of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, an Iraqi Council of Ministers statement said.

While in custody, the men confessed to committing murder, rape and attacking a police station that killed six police officers, the statement said. One of the members also confessed to blowing up 12 car bombs in Baghdad.

The initial investigation was conducted in al-Hindiyah, and the case will be transferred to Karbala for prosecution of the men.

On Saturday, at least eight people were killed and a dozen wounded in two separate bomb attacks in Baghdad, according to an official with the city's emergency police.

The official said police in Baghdad also recovered 15 bullet-ridden bodies in several neighborhoods. Most of the bodies, which were recovered over 14 hours, showed signs of torture and could not immediately be identified, he said.

One of the Saturday blasts was caused when a car bomb exploded in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding 10. The explosion occurred at the al-Majd al-Arabi intersection in the al-Shurta district about 8 p.m.

It came on the heels of an earlier bomb attack in western Baghdad, when a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol, killing three Iraqi soldiers and wounding two others. The attack took place in the al-Ghazaliya neighborhood about 6:30 p.m.

Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

Story Tools
Click Here to try 4 Free Trial Issues of Time! cover
Top Stories
Saddam fails to enter poison gas plea
Top Stories
11 charged in air terror 'plot'
CNN U.S.
CNN TV E-mail Services CNN Mobile CNNAvantGo CNNtext Ad Info Preferences
Search
© 2006 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us.
Offsite Icon External sites open in new window; not endorsed by CNN.com
Pipeline Icon Pay service with live and archived video. Learn more
Radio News Icon Download audio news  |  RSS Feed Add RSS headlines