Motorcycle bomb explodes in Baghdad, killing at least 12; 13 others die elsewhere in Iraq

(AP) A bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded in the center of the capital Thursday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 29, police said. At least 13 other people were killed or found dead in various parts of the country.

The attack near Rusafi Square in the Rashid Street shopping area apparently targeted fruit and vegetable vendors and commercial stalls, said police Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali. He said the bomb was hidden in a parked motorcycle.

Several shops caught fire and many victims were driven to hospitals in private cars as ambulances were obstructed by concrete and razor-wire roadblocks.

The attack occurred as Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso was visiting Baghdad on a surprise trip. At a news conference, he announced a $29 million loan for the reconstruction of Iraq.

The road to recovery for Iraq's economy has been a slow one because of almost daily bombings, shootings, abductions and assassinations blamed on sectarian divisions between Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis.

On Thursday, gunmen shot to death four people in separate incidents in Baghdad, Amarah, Mosul and Basra, police said. The bodies of nine men were found floating in separate places in the Tigris River, police and morgue officials said. At least two of the bodies were blindfolded, bound and shot.

According to figures compiled from Iraqi security and health department figures, more than 1,000 civilians, 135 members of security forces and 143 insurgents were killed nationwide in July. In addition, 1,800 civilians were injured.

Hundreds of followers of a radical Shiite cleric left a southern Iraqi city to join a rally in the capital condemning Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Muqtada al-Sadr, a firebrand anti-U.S. cleric who commands a large militia, has called on his followers from around the country to congregate in Baghdad on Friday after the weekly prayers. The rally, scheduled to be held in the Shiite slum of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, will show support for the Shiite Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah in its fight against Israel.

Some 20 buses, accompanied by police vehicles, left from the southern city of Basra, carrying young men, mostly unarmed members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. Many were draped in the white shrouds that Muslims use to wrap their dead _ a symbol of their willingness to die for Lebanon.

The buses were plastered with pictures of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has assumed a hero status in the Arab world. The men waved the yellow flags of Hezbollah and carried banners that read "Here we are Lebanon."

Al-Sadr is one of the most influential Shiite leaders in Iraq. His Sadr Movement party is the second biggest component of the Shiite alliance in Iraq's unity government, which includes Sunnis and Kurds.

A confidential report from Britain's outgoing ambassador to Iraq, William Patey, warned that the country is sliding toward civil war and is likely to divide eventually along ethnic lines, according to a British Broadcasting Corp. report Thursday.

Patey sent the memo to Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and other leading legislators and military commanders, BBC reported.

It said Patey also warned that to avoid a descent into civil war, there must be greater effort directed at policing militia groups, including al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, which he said could develop into "a state within a state," as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon.

On Wednesday, sectarian and political violence claimed at least 53 lives, including 11 young soccer players and spectators who died when two bombs exploded in a field in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. More than 70 people were killed on Tuesday.

The surge in sectarian violence has prompted the U.S. command to send at least 3,700 American soldiers from the northern city of Mosul to reclaim the capital's streets from Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, rogue police, criminals and freelance gunmen.

U.S. officials have been pressing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to disband the Shiite militias and make overtures to Sunni insurgent groups.

However, the militias draw strength from the disorder they help create because many Iraqis are losing confidence in the police and army _ preferring to rely on gunmen from their own sect for protection.

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Associated Press correspondents Vijay Joshi and Bushra Juhi contributed to this report.