Bomber hits Iraq market; dozens more bodies found

BAGHDAD – A suicide car bomber sent a fireball through a crowded market Tuesday in the Shiite holy city of Kufa, killing at least 16 people and threatening to further stoke sectarian tensions in relatively peaceful areas south of Baghdad.

Kufa, 100 miles south of Baghdad, is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia, which is loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. U.S. officials have expressed fears that Sunni insurgents led by al-Qaida are carefully picking their targets to provoke retaliatory violence to derail efforts to stabilize the country.

In a separate incident today, a suicide truck bomb exploded outside the Interior Ministry in the Kurdish city of Irbil, killing at least 12 people and wounding 53, officials said. Kurdish television showed footage of a building that had been almost completely destroyed.

Irbil, 215 miles north of Baghdad, is the capital of the Iraq’s Kurdistan region, which has been relatively calm, despite the violence in much of the rest of Iraq.

In Kufa on Tuesday, angry residents demanded better protection after the explosion and accused authorities of fortifying their own homes and offices at the expense of the public.

“They do not care about the fate of the poor. We demand real, effective security measures to protect us,” said 29-year-old Laith Hussein, who helped carry some of the wounded to the hospital.

The predominantly Shiite southern areas have seen a spike in violence, blamed in part on militants who have fled a crackdown in Baghdad. The U.S.-led offensive is intended to curb violence and allow the Shiite-led government some breathing room to implement reforms, including proposals to empower minority Sunni Arabs and help end the insurgency. There has been little evidence, though, of any movement toward those reforms.

At least 68 people were killed or found dead nationwide Tuesday, more than half of them apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by the Shiite militias.

A roadside bomb also killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded another southeast of Baghdad, the military said.