Double Bomb Attack Kills 31 In Baghdad

A suicide bomber struck Monday in a crowd gathered at the site of an explosion that moments earlier had damaged a bus filled with schoolgirls, with both blasts killing at least 31 people and wounding 71 others, authorities said.

Also Monday, a female suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint in downtown Baqouba, killing five people including a local leader of Sunni group opposed to al Qaeda, police said. Fifteen other people were wounded in that explosion, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The twin blasts - the deadliest in Baghdad in months - occurred during the morning rush hour in the mostly Shiite Kasrah section of Azamiyah neighborhood in the northern part of the Iraqi capital. They shattered storefronts along a crowded street and set fire to more than a dozen cars.

Police said the first explosion damaged a minibus carrying young girls to school. The second happened when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in the middle of a crowd that had gathered around the vehicle.

Police officials giving the toll were unclear how many died in each blast.

The Interior Ministry, which controls the police, gave the casualty figure of 31 dead and 71 wounded. A check of four hospitals in the Baghdad area provided the same count.

An Interior Ministry official speculated that extremists may have sought to "send a message" to President-elect Barack Obama about "the real situation in Iraq," pressure the government not to sign a new security agreement with the United States or embarrass the ruling parties ahead of regional elections in January.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was offering speculation.

The blasts shattered storefronts along the crowded street and set more than a dozen cars on fire.

Abbas Fadhil said he was working in a nearby restaurant that was damaged in the blasts.

"I rushed to the site and saw several girl students trapped in a bus and screaming for help. We took the girls outside the bus and rushed them to the hospitals," he said, standing in front of the damaged restaurant - his white shirt soaked with blood.

"This is a criminal act that targeted innocent people who were heading to work and school while the politicians are busy with their personal greed and ambitions," Fadhil said.

Associated Press Television News video showed the minibus pocked with shrapnel marks with the floor soaked in blood. Girls' shoes were scattered about amid the wreckage.

Ahmed Riyadh, 54, owner of a nearby grocery, said called it a "vicious attack" that "did not differentiate between Shiites and Sunnis."

"We are fed up with such attacks and we want only to live in peace," he said. "The politicians should work hard and set aside their differences to stop the bloodshed."

No group claimed responsibility for the blasts, the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in weeks.

But suicide attacks against Shiite civilians are the hallmark of al Qaeda in Iraq, which maintains a limited presence in Baghdad despite military setbacks and the Sunni revolt against the terror movement last year.

U.S. Col. John Hort said the blasts were an "al Qaeda trademark attack of a cowardly nature targeting civilians in Baghdad."

Violence is down significantly in Baghdad since the worst of the Sunni-Shiite fighting in 2006 and 2007.

In recent weeks, however, there appears to have been an uptick in small-scale bombings during the morning rush hour - targeting Iraqi police and army patrols, government officials heading for work or commuters, in an attempt to undermine public confidence.

Bombs killed at least eight people Sunday across Iraq and wounded dozens of others, officials said, as Syria's president blamed Iraq's instability on the U.S. military presence and called on U.S. troops to leave. (Read more.)

While American commanders acknowledge a recent increase in violent incidents in the capital, CBS News Baghdad bureau chief Larry Doyle says they stress the fact that the number of attacks in the past month or so remains far lower than the 100 or more incidents per day being reported a year ago.

Brigadier Gen. Will Grimsley, the U.S. commander in charge of Baghdad, told journalists on Monday, "the attacks are troubling to us," but "the number and severity of attacks is not significantly different" from recent months, which saw an average of 4 daily attacks in Baghdad.

Doyle reports that there seems to be some puzzlement as to who is behind the most recent spate of bombings. Unlike past events, no groups have claimed responsibility for the recent attacks and both Sunni and Shiite areas and populations have been repeatedly targeted.

That trend continued with Monday's blasts in Kasrah, a neighborhood which Doyle reports is home to an ethnically mixed population.

The continuing attacks show the determination of extremist groups to continue the fight against the U.S.-backed government, and they lie behind U.S. military concerns about drawing down the 151,000-member U.S. military force too quickly.

A still un-ratified security agreement with the U.S. would keep American soldiers here through 2011.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw all combat troops within 16 months of taking office Jan. 20, although he has said he would consult with the Iraqi government and U.S. commanders before ordering any drawdown.