Car bomb kills 32 in Iraqi town

BAGHDAD - A car bomb ripped through a crowded commercial district in a mainly Shiite town yesterday, killing at least 32 people, Iraqi officials said - the latest attack north of Baghdad where violence has been slower to decline than elsewhere in the country.

The explosion, which wounded 43, was apparently targeting a police station in the town of Dujail but instead badly damaged a nearby medical clinic, according to police. Concrete barriers largely protected the police station.

The blast took place about 50 yards from the police station in an area packed with shoppers preparing for Iftar, the daily meal at which Muslims break their sunrise-to-sunset fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

Kamil al-Khazraji, 33, the owner of a clothing store, said he was preparing to close when he heard the explosion. "The ground under me was shaking," he said. "I went outside the shop only to see fire and dust all over the place. The area looked like a battlefield, with wounded people crying for help and scattered dead bodies."

Two police officers and a hospital official gave the casualty toll on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The U.S. military confirmed a car bomb exploded about 6:20 p.m. in Dujail, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, but said 23 Iraqis were killed and 40 were wounded. Conflicting tolls from explosions in Iraq are common as authorities struggle to recover victims and contain the damage in the aftermath.

The death toll reported by Iraqi officials makes yesterday's blast the deadliest since July 28, when 32 people were killed by three female suicide bombers who struck Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad.

Earlier yesterday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a Shiite mosque farther north in Sinjar as worshipers left prayers at midday, killing two civilians and wounding 15, the police chief, Col. Awad Kahlil, said. Sinjar is near Mosul, which is the target of an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi operation against Sunni insurgents.

In a political development, Shiite followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr demonstrated in Baghdad and the southern city of Kufa against plans for a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that will determine the status of the American military in Iraq after the current U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Talks on the security agreement have slowed over Washington's insistence on retaining sole legal jurisdiction over American troops in Iraq and differences over a schedule for the departure of the U.S. military.

Iraqi officials want all foreign troops out by the end of 2011. President Bush has resisted a firm timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

The Bush administration

said yesterday it had surpassed its goal of allowing 12,000 Iraqi refugees into this country this year and will try to admit at least 17,000 next year.

Officials said

that 12,118 Iraqi refugees had arrived since Oct. 1, 2007, and that 1,000 have flights booked.

The U.S.

streamlined the process after criticism for not doing enough

for Iraqis who have fled their country.

Fewer than

2,000 were admitted in the last budget year. Sweden gave asylum to 40,000.

- AP