World

2 Baghdad Bombs; 4 GIs Die In W. Iraq

February 7, 2006 / 6:33 PM EST / CBS/AP

Authorities say two bombs exploded minutes apart near a central Baghdad square on Tuesday, killing at least seven people.

Separately, in western Iraq, four U.S. Marines died in explosions.

Three Marines assigned to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit died in a bombing Monday in the city of Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad, according to a statement. The victims had operated in Anbar province since mid-December with an Iraqi army battalion.

Another Marine, attached to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, died from wounds caused by a bomb blast Sunday in an unspecified location within Anbar, which includes the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

In Baghdad Tuesday, police Capt. Mohammed Abdul Ghani says the first of two bombs was in a plastic bag placed near a CD vendor's stand close to the capital's Tahrir Square by a man who fled seconds before the 9:55 a.m. explosion, which killed at least three people.

Abdel Ghani says he was among several policemen who went to the scene of the first blast, 10 minutes after which he witnessed a second bomb hidden in a drain explode, killing four more people including one policeman.

"The vendors were apparently the target of the first explosion because they sell pornographic CDs, while the second was aimed at a police patrol," said Lt. Mohammed Khayoun.

A witness said the first blast happened near a crowd of people watching a film on the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a 7th century Shiite saint who millions of Iraqis mourn during the feast of Ashoura.

"I was standing near the vendor who was targeted. He had a television set showing a film on the martyrdom of Imam Hussein and then the explosion happened," said Ali Abdul Mohsen Karim, 25, who had a stand selling leather jackets. "I saw two people dead and ran and hid in one of the stores. Then the other explosion took place."

Officials at two hospitals where the casualties were taken confirmed that seven people were killed and at least 20 wounded in both bombings.

Ashoura commemorations reach their height on Thursday when hundreds of thousands of Shiites are expected to take part in self-flagellation processions across the country in bloody shows of grief to remember Hussein's death.

Iraqi security forces are on high alert to prevent a repeat of past Ashoura ceremonies where Sunni Arab extremist suicide attackers detonated explosions targeting Shiite worshippers, killing more than 230 people in Baghdad and the holy southern city of Karbala.

Much of the momentum driving Iraq's raging violence comes from a campaign of sectarian-related attacks launched by armed Shiites and Sunni Arabs.

In other recent developments:

U.S. military officials say about 100 Iraqi soldiers, some rappelling from U.S. helicopters, raided a suspected insurgent training camp south of Baghdad Monday night, detaining 26 people allegedly preparing to attack Shiite pilgrims on their way to Muslim holiday ceremonies in the city of Karbala.

In Fallujah Tuesday, masked gunmen ambushed and killed Sheik Kamal Nazal, a Sunni Arab cleric who headed up the city council, attacking him from two cars that surrounded Nazal's own vehicle as he walked to work.

According to a witness at an Australian hearing on the U.N. oil-for-food program, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein personally intervened to help Australia's monopoly wheat exporter overcome port delays while the company paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to his regime under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

Police say that early Tuesday, a roadside bomb struck a pickup truck south of Baghdad and killed two Iraqi civilians. The blast happened near a bridge in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad, and destroyed the vehicle the two people were traveling in, said Capt. Muthana Khaled. It was unclear if the civilians were the target of the attack.

The U.S. Marine deaths announced by the military on Monday raise the number of U.S. military personnel killed to at least 2,257 since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The explosions highlight the constant danger posed by homemade bombs across Iraq, which have become the deadliest weapon used by mainly Sunni Arab insurgents against the U.S.-led military presence in the country.

Drive-by gunmen killed a supporter of radical Shiite anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood, said Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq. The victim worked at al-Sadr's office in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

The incident appeared to be the latest bout in a spate of sectarian-related killings carried out by rival armed Shiite and Sunni Arab groups vying for ascendancy in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

The killings also come amid efforts to form a national unity government comprising members of the country's Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities. The United States hopes such a government could help reduce the incessant violence.

Another roadside bomb wounded four policemen in western Basra, about 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, said police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zubaidi said.

A homemade bomb exploded in a bin in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Jihad, blowing an oil refinery worker's hand off, said Abdul-Razzaq.