BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Powerful bombs tore through markets in two cities Monday evening, killing at least 35 people and wounding 86, police reported.

As the violence continued, a key Shiite legislator told The Associated Press said seven minor Sunni Arab insurgent groups had contacted the government to declare their readiness to join efforts at national reconciliation.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, said a Marine died of wounds suffered in combat in Anbar province, the most dangerous region of Iraq, and an American commander said U.S. forces likely would remain there until sometime next year _ even as the Bush administration considered a plan that could cut the American military presence by about half within 18 months.

At least 20 people were killed and 30 wounded in a bicycle bombing in the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, according to police in the city who speak only on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

That blast occurred shortly after a bomb went off in the main market in the predominantly Shiite city of Hillah, killing at least 15 people and wounding 56, according to police Capt. Muthana Khalid.

The market in Hillah, 65 miles south of Baghdad near the site of ancient Babylon, was crowded with shoppers buying vegetables and other groceries before dinner. Angry survivors shouted “Down with the police!” and threw stones to express their rage over the lack of security.

Hillah was the site of one of the deadliest attacks on Iraqi Shiites on Feb. 28, 2005. On that date, a suicide car bomb targeted police and national guard recruits, killing 125 people.

Elsewhere, 10 Sunni students, all males at the Iraqi Technology University in eastern Baghdad, were kidnapped after gunmen rousted them from their dormitory rooms, police Lt. Thayer Mahmoud said.

Gunmen attacked a convoy assigned to Iraq’s most senior Sunni Arab politician, killing a bodyguard, police said. Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Iraq Accordance Front, was not in any of the vehicles. It was the second attack in four months on an al-Dulaimi convoy.

The seven insurgent groups, most of them believed made up of former members or backers of Saddam Hussein’s government, military or security agencies, have said they want a truce, according to Hassan al-Suneid, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party.

The contact by the insurgent groups, which could not be independently verified, would mark an important potential shift and could be evidence of a growing divide between Iraqi insurgents and the more brutal and ideological fighters of al-Qaida in Iraq, who are believed to mainly be non-Iraqi Islamic militants.

Al-Maliki was considering a possible meeting with leaders of the groups or contacts through intermediaries, al-Suneid said.

He identified only six of the seven organizations by name, listing them as the 1920 Revolution Brigades, the Mohammed Army, Abtal al-Iraq (Heroes of Iraq), the 9th of April Group, al-Fatah Brigades, and the Brigades of the General Command of the Armed Forces.

The 1920 Revolution Brigades operates primarily in Anbar province. It claims its operations have only been conducted against U.S. forces. They and other insurgents were said to have protected polling places against attacks in the December parliamentary voting.

The Mohammed Army is made up of former members of Saddam’s Baath Party, members of his elite Republican Guards and former military commanders. It, too, has focused attacks on the U.S. military and played a role in the November 2004 battle for Fallujah.

Al-Maliki unveiled his 24-point national reconciliation initiative Sunday, offering amnesty to insurgents who renounce violence and have not committed terrorist attacks.

The plan lacked important details, but issued specific instructions to Iraqi security forces to rapidly take control of the country so U.S. and other foreign troops can leave eventually. It did not include a deadline for their withdrawal.

Al-Maliki said Iraq also must deal with the problem of militias, which are blamed for a surge of sectarian bloodshed that has worsened violence in Iraq _ where nearly 40 people have been killed in the last 24 hours.

The central section of Anbar province, which contains the troubled provincial capital of Ramadi, is a haven for the Sunni-led insurgency. Much of Ramadi, Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab city with a population of 400,000, has gone unpatrolled by U.S. forces in recent months.

While two brigades of Iraqi soldiers have recently been introduced to central Anbar province, the U.S. commander of the area said last week that Americans would be in charge for the foreseeable future. More than 5,000 U.S. forces are based in the area.

“I don’t think by this winter we’ll be quite ready to turn over completely” to Iraqi forces, said Army Col. Sean MacFarland, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division that oversees Ramadi and a stretch of farmland to the east.

Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, who oversees Marines in the Middle East and Central Asia, told The New York Times he saw no reductions in American forces in Anbar at least through next summer.

“Anbar is going to be one of the last provinces to be stabilized,” Sattler told the Times.

While al-Maliki set no timetable for a U.S. pullout, officials in Washington have reported that Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, had drafted a plan for drawing down the U.S. presence by two combat brigades in late summer or early autumn.

The New York Times said officials indicated the reduction could involve the 1st Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, which patrols a swath of west Baghdad, and the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, in troubled Diyala province.

According to the report, those brigades’ duties would be assumed by U.S. forces from elsewhere in Iraq. The Times said the Casey plan envisioned eventually cutting U.S. forces from the current 14 brigades to five or six by the end of 2007.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said any reduction in forces would depend on conditions in Iraq and be made in consultation with the Iraqi government.

On Sunday, the terrorist umbrella organization that includes al-Qaida in Iraq posted an Internet video showing the purported killing of three of the four Russian Embassy workers kidnapped June 3. A statement said the fourth also was slain.

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of the hostages.

“It is with deep pain that we report that the seizure of the workers of the Russian Embassy in Iraq has, judging by everything, ended in an irremediable way despite all efforts taken for the freeing of our people,” the ministry said in a statement Monday.

The kidnappers had demanded the Kremlin pull troops out of Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia where separatists have been fighting for independence.