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BAGHDAD - A bomb destroyed a truck carrying chlorine north of Baghdad today, killing five people and spewing out toxic fumes that sickened nearly 140 others in an apparent dirty-bomb attack, Iraqi police said.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber and two car bombs killed at least 17 people. Police also said 20 unidentified bodies were found on Monday, a spike in the daily death toll after a marked reduction since the start of a US-backed security crackdown aimed at restoring order to the Iraqi capital.
One of the bombs hit an area visited on Tuesday by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who made a rare public foray outside the fortified international Green Zone to meet citizens and police involved in the crackdown.
A source at police headquarters said the chlorine truck was rigged with explosives, suggesting it was a dirty bomb employing a readily available substance used to purify water. A second police source also said the bomb was on the truck.
The truck exploded near a restaurant at a rest stop on the main highway in Taji, 20km north of Baghdad.
Twisted metal and debris littered the ground in front of a tyre repair shop after the blast, which sent out toxic fumes that caused scores of people to be taken to hospital.
Police said at least five people were killed and the total number of hurt including those sickened by the chlorine as well as those hit by the explosion was 139. Many women and children were among them.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed at least seven people and wounded 20 when he blew himself up at a mourning tent in the mainly Shi'ite area of Palestine Street in the northeast of the city, police said. Maliki visited the area on Tuesday though there was no immediate indication he was targeted.
Earlier in the day, a car bomb exploded near a fuel station in the Baghdad district of Saidiya, killing five people and wounding 11 more, police said. A second police source, however, said three were killed and 12 wounded in that attack.
Another car bomb exploded in Doura, in the south of Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 20 at a vegetable market.
Security forces foiled another car bomb attack, blowing up a vehicle near a police checkpoint in Doura.
The US-led offensive against both Shi'ite militias and Sunni insurgents had sharply reduced the number of death squad killings in Baghdad since it formally began a week ago.
Before the crackdown, police had been finding 40 to 50 bodies a day. On Sunday, they found just three bodies and in previous days around five each day, but on Monday the number rose to 20, a police source said.
Most such bodies are victims of sectarian death squads and many are found tortured, bound and shot dead. The figure from the mortuary does not include victims of bomb attacks or others who are taken to hospitals and identified there.
US generals, mindful of the failure of similar crackdowns last year, have warned that militants are likely to adapt their tactics and perhaps lie low initially.
US embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said the plan was only just starting and would take time to show results.
"This is a gradual plan. To say this is successful or this is failing is way too premature at this point," he said.
More than 110,000 Iraqi and US forces are taking part in Operation Imposing Law, aimed at curbing the sectarian violence that has been killing hundreds every week and dividing the city on sectarian lines, driving tens of thousands from their homes.
US military officials have warned that militants could strike in areas outside Baghdad while US and Iraqi forces focus their efforts inside the capital.
Maliki's office also denied claims by a Sunni woman that she was raped by police, saying "known parties" were trying to discredit the security crackdown.
Sunni officials have condemned the alleged incident, which could inflame sectarian tensions in Iraq.
- REUTERS
