49 Killed in String of Attacks in Iraq

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Car bombs and other attacks killed at least 49 people Tuesday across Iraq as the government struggled with deteriorating security, while a man who allegedly confessed to hundreds of beheadings has been captured, officials said.

On Monday, another 40 people were killed in various attacks, including two CBS journalists who died in a bombing that critically wounded a correspondent for the network. They were two of the bloodiest days in recent weeks.

Not including Tuesday’s attacks, at least 4,066 Iraqis had been killed in war-related violence so far in 2006, according to Associated Press reports, which may not be complete because the reporting process does not cover the entire country. That figure includes 871 in May, surpassing the 801 killed in April.

Tuesday’s deadliest bomb struck in a popular market during the evening in Husseiniyah, about 20 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least 25 people and wounding 65, said Lt. Colonel Falah al-Mohamedawi, an Interior Ministry spokesman.

Police also said they defused another bomb in a car near the scene.

In the southern city of Hillah, a car packed with explosives blew up at a dealership, killing 12 people and wounding 32.

A bomb hidden in a plastic bag detonated outside a bakery in eastern Baghdad on Tuesday night, killing at least nine people and injuring 10, al-Mohamedawi said.

In central Baghdad, mortar rounds hit the heavily guarded Interior Ministry and a nearby park, killing two government employees.

A mortar round fired by remote control struck the Interior Ministry compound, killing two female employees and wounding a policeman and two janitors, said police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani said. Another round landed in a city park, wounding two city workers, he said. The Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry also was attacked in April.

Also in the capital, a roadside bomb killed one police officer and wounded four others, and police found the bodies of three blindfolded and handcuffed men who apparently had been tortured and shot in the head. A decapitated body was discovered floating in the river about 35 miles south of the capital.

Police also said three members of al-Qaida in Iraq had been killed during clashes south of Baghdad last week.

The military said another U.S. soldier died Monday during combat in northern Iraq, and the bodies of two Marines missing after a helicopter crash in western Iraq over the weekend were recovered.

The AH-1 Cobra helicopter from 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing was on a maintenance test flight when it went down Saturday in the volatile Anbar region. The military said hostile fire was not suspected as the cause, but the crash was under investigation.

The violence came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki held meetings aimed at finding new defense and interior ministers more than a week after his national unity government took office. Iraq’s ethnic, sectarian and secular parties are struggling to agree on who should run the two crucial ministries, which oversee the army and the police.

Top Shiite officials said the U.S. Embassy had invited government representatives and the leaders of all the political blocs to a meeting, and they expected the names of new candidates to be discussed.

In the meantime, U.S. military commanders have moved about 1,500 combat troops from a reserve force in Kuwait into Anbar province to help local authorities establish order there. The province is an insurgent hotbed stretching from west of Baghdad to the Syrian border.

The military command described the new deployment as short-term. The plan is to keep the latest troops in Anbar no longer than four months, said one military official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the move.

The Iraqi government identified the suspected terrorist captured Monday as Ahmed Hussein Dabash Samir al-Batawi and said he had confessed to hundreds of beheadings. He was arrested by a terrorist combat unit, which also seized documents, cell phones and computers that contained information on other wanted terrorists and Islamic extremist groups, the prime minister’s office said.

The government released a mug shot of the suspect, who is balding, has a mustache and was wearing a white T-shirt with an identifying placard dangling from his neck.

CBS reporter Kimberly Dozier, a 39-year-old American, was listed in critical but stable condition at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in southern Germany following Monday’s car bomb attack that killed her cameraman, Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, both Britons, as well as a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi contractor.

Dozens of journalists have been injured, killed or kidnapped in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Parliament on Monday debated the violence in the capital and outlying provinces but failed to set up a commission to deal with the problem because of al-Maliki’s inability to appoint ministers of defense and interior.

The Interior Ministry, which controls the police, has been promised to the Shiites. Sunni Arabs are to get the Defense Ministry, overseeing the army.

It is hoped the balance will enable al-Maliki to move ahead with a plan for Iraqis to take over all security duties in the next 18 months. He wants to attract army recruits from the Sunni Arab minority, which provides the core of the insurgency.

The U.S. Embassy said al-Maliki, Cabinet members and political leaders were to meet at a social gathering organized by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Some legislators said the matter of the unfilled Cabinet positions would be discussed.

Meanwhile, Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim Ali said 249 prisoners who had been suspected of ties to the insurgency were released from three U.S. detention centers. They were part of a group of 2,000 cleared for release by a joint committee from the Justice, Interior and Human Rights ministries, as well as Americans, Ali said.

Many of the detainees, who had been held at the Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and Fort Suse prisons, kissed the ground and touched their foreheads to express thanks to God.

There are still 14,000 detainees, including five women, in prisons nationwide, Busho said.


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