World

Shiite Mosque Blast Kills 11 In Iraq

May 24, 2006 / 7:07 AM EDT / CBS/AP

A bomb on a motorcycle exploded in the courtyard of a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad on Tuesday night, killing 11 people and wounding at least nine, a security official said.

The bomb exploded at 9:10 p.m. at the Imam al-Muntadhar Mosque in the mixed Tunis neighborhood near the predominantly Sunni Aran district of Azamiyah, said Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohamedawi of the Interior Ministry.

Other violence across Iraq on Tuesday killed another 23 people, including five who died when a car bomb exploded at the entrance to a police station in Baghdad's biggest Shiite neighborhood, officials said.

The deaths came a day after new Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Britain's visiting leader, Tony Blair, announced that Iraqi security forces would start assuming full responsibility for some provinces and cities next month, beginning a process that could lead to the eventual withdrawal of all coalition forces.

They said "responsibility for much of Iraq's territorial security should have been transferred to Iraqi control" by December. At that point, al-Maliki said, two of the most violent provinces, Baghdad and Anbar, may be the last where coalition forces maintain control.

But some of Tuesday's violence showed that goal may not be easy to achieve.

A car bomb was detonated in the late afternoon outside a police station in Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite district in northeast Baghdad, killing five and injuring 16, said Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohamedawi of the Interior Ministry.

Earlier, gunmen in a car shot and killed four ironsmiths and wounded one as they rode to work in Mosul in a pickup truck, said police Brig. Abdul-Hamid Khalaf.

In other developments:

President Bush said on Tuesday that he would make a fresh assessment about Iraq's needs for U.S. military help now that a new government has taken office in Baghdad. He also said Americans should not judge what is happening in Iraq solely on the basis of the unrelenting violence. ``It is a difficult task to stop suicide bombers,'' Bush said at a news conference. ``If one were to measure progress on the number of suiciders, if that's your definition of success, I think it obscures the steady, incremental march toward democracy we're seeing.''

The White House on Tuesday played down prospects of major troop withdrawals from Iraq in the near future. "We're not going to sort of look at our watches and say, oops, time to go," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said. The establishment of a unity government in Baghdad has stirred talk of troops reductions by the United States and Britain, the two major players in terms of soldiers in Iraq. But with violence still widespread, Snow said, "The conditions on the ground tell us that our job's not done."

Jordan identified the arrested al Qaeda in Iraq official on Tuesday as a top lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was lured to the kingdom to be arrested there. The Iraqi, Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly, was detained by Jordanian intelligence agents and special anti-terrorism forces, according to a government announcement on Jordanian TV.

Guards forcibly pulled a defense lawyer out of the courtroom and the chief judge shouted down Saddam Hussein on Monday in a stormy start to a new session of the trial of the former Iraqi leader and members of his regime. As she was pulled out of the court, Saddam, sitting in the defendants' pen, objected, and Abdel-Rahman told him to be silent. "I'm Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq. I am above all," Saddam shouted back.

In a drive-by shooting, attackers killed three day laborers and wounded four as they drove by a minibus to work at a farm near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Police said the casualties, all majority Shiites, appeared to be the latest victims of sectarian attacks by minority Sunni Arabs in Diyala province.

Several hours later, gunmen in a speeding car killed three men who were standing near a house in Baqouba, police said.

Nazar Qadir, 39, a high school teacher on his way to work near Kirkuk city in Tamim province 180 miles north of Baghdad, also was killed in a drive-by shooting.

On Jan. 31, a U.S. Embassy report had found security "critical" in Anbar province, the Sunni-dominated region west of Baghdad that includes Ramadi and Fallujah. It also said the security situation was considered serious in the provinces of Baghdad, Basra, Ninevah, Tamim, Salahuddin and Diyala, all religiously mixed.

A car bomb exploded in New Baghdad, killed two police commandos and three civilians. The attack, which damaged nearby shops and cars, also wounded five commandos and three civilians.

A roadside bomb hit a minibus carrying workers to a textile factory in western Baghdad, killing one and wounding three others, said police 1st Lt. Maithem Abdel-Razaq.

In western Baghdad, a drive-by shooting killed one of the many vendors who sell cigarettes from small wooden stands alongside streets in the capital. A roadside bomb also damaged a Humvee in a U.S. convoy in Dora, one of Baghdad's most violent areas, and a woman and a child were wounded in gunfire that followed.

A mortar shell landed near the heavily fortified Green Zone, wounding four civilians and damaging three cars, police said. The Green Zone, where Iraq's government meets and the U.S. and British embassies are based, is a frequent target of such attacks.

During his news conference with Blair on Monday, al-Maliki was asked whether the surge in sectarian violence, which has prompted thousands of Iraqis to flee their homes, is a civil war.

"There are rebellious elements. There are gangs killing people. There are gangs that have used arms for political blackmailing or to achieve goals that have political dimensions," he said. "But those groups have failed to ignite a civil war."