Several killed by gunmen, car bombers in Sadr City

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Car bombs killed eight people in a Shiite slum and gunmen mounted a deadly ambush on a bus in a Sunni area of the capital Monday as Iraq’s sectarian violence showed no sign of easing.

The coordinated bombing attack in Baghdad’s Sadr City began at midmorning when a car exploded near a repair shop. Minutes later, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle in a crowd of curiosity-seekers who were milling around the first blast site, witnesses and police said.

Hours later, gunmen attacked a bus in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah in western Baghdad, killing the driver and six passengers police Capt. Jamil Hussein said. The attackers set fire to the bus before fleeing.

The bombings in Sadr City may have been a reprisal for an attack Sunday in west Baghdad’s Jihad neighborhood, where Shiite gunmen rampaged through the streets, stopping people, checking identification cards and killing people with clearly Sunni names.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appealed Monday for unity, telling the Kurdish regional parliament in the northern city of Irbil that it is “our destiny to work together to defeat terrorism.”

But there was no let-up in communal violence.

Late Monday, gunmen believed to be Shiites blocked streets in the mostly Sunni area of Ghazaliyah and opened fire at a Sunni mosque, police said

A bomb exploded earlier in an outdoor market in central Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 18. Gunfire also erupted in the religiously mixed Dora district of southwestern Baghdad, where local authorities imposed a curfew.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a suicide truck bomber attacked an office of President Jalal Talabani’s political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing five people and wounding 12, police said.

A roadside bomb killed a policeman and wounded four people in the Shiite city of Hillah in southern Iraq. Also in the south, a former major general under Saddam Hussein was assassinated in Basra, a predominantly Shiite city that is the country’s second-biggest metropolis.

At least 28 others were reported killed in bombings and shootings across Iraq, police said.