Suicide bomb kills 18 in Iraq

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed 18 people near a hospital south of Baghdad on Saturday amid a surge of violence by Iraq's mostly Sunni Muslim insurgents ahead of Ashura, the holiest festival on the Shi'ite religious calendar.

The bomber drove his vehicle toward local government offices and a hospital in the town of Musayyib, southwest of Baghdad, but detonated it outside blast walls protecting the buildings, police said. Most of the dead were civilians.

Around 25 people were also wounded in the attack, the second suicide car bombing in as many days.

Violence calmed briefly after Iraq's Jan. 30 elections but has since increased in the past week in the build-up to Ashura, which reaches its climax next weekend.

The final tally from the historic vote will be released on Sunday, officials said. The results are expected to confirm Shi'ite dominance of Iraqi politics for the first time in centuries.

Attacks on Shi'ite targets on Friday seemed designed to fuel sectarian tension. A suicide bomber killed 13 people at a mosque north of the capital and gunmen killed nine at a Baghdad bakery.

Sunni militants have exploited religious rifts before to try to fragment Iraq and destabilise the US-backed government.

Insurgents also struck in the southern city of Basra on Saturday, killing a senior judge, Taha al-Amiri, as he drove to work. It was the city's second assassination in a week.

In Kirkuk, police sources said they were hot on the trail of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who has claimed responsibility for many of the worst attacks in Iraq, including the beheading of several foreign hostages.

"He came to Kirkuk from Mosul," a source in the Kirkuk police department said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There's a possibility that he might be captured at any moment."

There was no immediate comment from US or Iraqi officials on the report. Iraqi officials recently claimed to be close to capturing the elusive militant, who is allied to al Qaeda. US authorities are offering a $25 million bounty for his capture.

In Baiji, west of Kirkuk, a roadside blast killed two Iraqi policemen and a civilian, a police source said, while a car bomb killed a woman and wounded six people in eastern Baghdad.

In Baquba, north of the capital, a police lieutenant was shot dead whilst sitting in a shop.

ASHURA FEARS

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned during a visit to Iraq on Friday that it would take some time for Iraqi security forces to crush the insurgency.

Concerned to prevent a wave of bloodshed coinciding with Ashura, the interim government has said it will seal all borders between Feb. 17 and Feb. 22 to stop pilgrims flooding into Iraq. Many pilgrims come from neighbouring Iran and from Pakistan.

Last year during Ashura, which honours the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, in 680 A.D., suicide bombers blew themselves up among crowds of Shi'ite pilgrims in Baghdad and Kerbala, killing 171 people.

The resumption of near-daily suicide attacks is a blow to hopes among some officials that the election, which saw millions of Iraqis go to the polls in defiance of insurgent threats, might mark a turning point after two years of violence.

Attacks slowed after the vote, but suicide bombs in Baghdad, Baquba and Mosul since then have killed more than 60 police, soldiers and would-be recruits to the security forces.

A religious-based coalition blessed by Iraq's foremost Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has a commanding lead in the partial results so far, with around half the 4.6 million votes counted.

A coalition of Kurdish parties is in second place and a bloc led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is third.

If the Shi'ite coalition wins, as widely expected, it would put Iraq's 60 per cent Shi'ite majority in power for the first time, after decades of oppression under Saddam, a Sunni.

Horse-trading to determine who will get the most powerful positions in the next government is already in full swing.

Allawi travelled to northern Iraq on Saturday to meet Jalal Talabani, leader of one of two main Kurdish parties, in the hope of striking a deal with the powerful Kurdish bloc. It was Allawi's second meeting with a Kurdish leader in three days.

- REUTERS