Bombings kill at least 68 in Iraq
By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombings killed at least 68 people in
Iraq on Saturday, including one planted on a minibus that exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad.
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The attacks came hours after
Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad for ordering the killings of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail in 1982. Despite concerns about a spike in unrest, Saturday's violence was not unusually high and there was no indication it was related to the execution.
The U.S. military also announced the deaths of three Marines and three soldiers, making December the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq, with 109 service members killed.
The bombing at the fish market in Kufa, a Shiite town about 100 miles south of the Iraqi capital, killed 31 people and wounded 58, said Issa Mohammed, director of the morgue in the neighboring town of Najaf. The man blamed for parking the vehicle was cornered and killed by a mob as he walked away from the explosion, police and witnesses said.
Shoppers had crowded into the market to buy supplies for the four-day Eid al-Adha festival, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar for Shiites.
Television footage showed hundreds of men in traditional Arab headdresses swarming around the minibus' charred frame, toppled on its side in the street. Ambulances and fire trucks pulled up to the site, and a coffin was loaded on top of a car.
In northwest Baghdad, two parked cars exploded one after another, killing 37 civilians and wounding 76 in a mixed neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, police said.
The Marines died Thursday of wounds from fighting in western Anbar province, the U.S. military said. A soldier also died in combat Friday in Anbar, and two others were killed by roadside bombs in northwest Baghdad, the military said.
Their deaths pushed the December death toll past the 105 U.S. service members killed in Iraq in October. At least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Saddam was hanged early Saturday, after his conviction last month for crimes against humanity in connection with the Dujail killings. Curfews were enforced in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and in Samarra, both in the predominantly Sunni Salahuddin province north of Baghdad.
Mostly peaceful demonstrations broke out in several towns across Iraq, with hundreds of people marching in the streets carrying Iraqi flags and banners. Despite the curfew, gunmen in Tikrit paraded with his picture and fired their weapons into the air, calling for vengeance.
Police said Iraqi troops arrested 39 suspects with "quantities of weapons" in Balaz Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad.
On Friday, a suicide bomber killed at least nine people near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, and 32 tortured bodies were found across the country.
December was also shaping up to be one of the worst months for Iraqi civilian deaths since the AP began keeping track in May 2005.
Through Thursday, at least 2,139 Iraqis have been killed in war-related or sectarian violence, an average rate of about 76 people a day, according to the AP count. That compares to at least 2,184 killed in November at an average of about 70 a day, the worst month for Iraqi civilians deaths since May 2005. In October, AP counted at least 1,216 civilians killed.
The AP count includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces, and is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported.