Car bombs kill 30 in Iraq as Bush reassures PM

BAGHDAD - Car bombs killed at least 30 people in Iraq today, including two near simultaneous blasts in a mixed area in Baghdad shortly before Muslims gathered at sunset to break their fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

The fresh violence came as President Bush assured Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that Washington had not set any deadline for the Iraqi government to get control of sectarian violence threatening to plunge Iraq into civil war.

US commanders have warned that Sunni insurgent groups such as al Qaeda battling the US-backed Shi'ite-led government would launch attacks during Ramadan. Yesterday, 10 people were killed in restive Kirkuk.

Iraq has been gripped by sectarian violence between Muslim Shi'ites and Sunnis since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in February. Thousands have been killed and more than 300,000 have been forced to flee their homes.

In the worst violence today, two car bombs exploded in the religiously mixed area of Ur in northern Baghdad, killing 20 people and wounding 17, an Interior Ministry source said. One of the blasts went off near a market.

US and Iraqi forces have launched a security crackdown in Baghdad in a bid to ease violence gripping the capital, but bloodshed has continued largely unchecked.

South of the capital, at least 10 people were killed and 15 wounded when a car bomb went off near a bank in a market in the town of Suwayra, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town, police said.

Two US soldiers were killed and two wounded after coming under fire in Kirkuk province, the US military said, adding to a death toll that could make October the deadliest month for US forces since January 2005.

Fifty-six US soldiers have been killed in Iraq this month.

Following a weekend rampage by black-clad militias that left at least 31 mostly Sunnis dead north of Baghdad, Sunnis were fleeing the town of Balad, a mostly Shi'ite town surrounded by Sunni villages, officials said.

Adil al-Sumaidai, an official for the Sunni Islamic Party, told Reuters more than 60 families had fled their homes.

"There are families who do not know their destiny. This is sectarian displacement to stop Sunnis from living here."

The rampage was in apparent retaliation for the killing of 14 Shi'ite laborers, whose bodies were found with their throats cut on Friday in an orchard in nearby Dhuluiya, a mostly Sunni town across the Tigris River.

Amid growing sectarian bloodshed, Bush assured Maliki today that the United States had not set any deadlines.

Maliki raised his concerns about a timeline, saying rumors could undercut confidence in the Iraqi government, during a 15-minute telephone call initiated by Bush, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

"The president underscored his commitment to a democratically elected government of Iraq, encouraging the prime minister to ignore rumors that the United States government was seeking to impose a timeline on the Maliki government," Snow said.

The Iraq conflict, in which more than 2,750 American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, has dragged down Bush's popularity before the November elections in which his Republican Party is fighting to keep control of Congress.

A US-backed court trying Saddam Hussein for the killing of Shi'ite villagers in the 1980s could deliver a verdict on November 5, officials said, a ruling which could send the ousted leader to the gallows.

- REUTERS