Deadly blasts in Baghdad stir fury, fear

BAGHDAD - Anger boiled over on Baghdad streets at Iraqi soldiers and police after they failed to prevent a stunning series of coordinated bombings across the city yesterday that left 37 dead and more than 100 wounded.

Iraq's government blamed the attacks on supporters of Saddam Hussein "in cooperation with the al-Qaeda terrorist organization" and suggested the blasts were timed for today's anniversary of the founding of the late dictator's Baath party.

The attacks, which one Interior Ministry official called the worst breach of security in Baghdad this year, occurred as the U.S. military is drawing down its forces in the capital.

Some Iraqis pondered whether their own soldiers and police can maintain order if Shiite-Sunni violence flares again once the Americans have gone.

At the site of one blast, in the former militia stronghold of Sadr City, angry crowds hurled stones at Iraqi soldiers in a display of bitterness that they failed to prevent a car bomb from being brought into a busy market, where it exploded.

"We see nothing from them, they are useless," said Mohammed Latif, a government employee who lives in Sadr City. "They are responsible for what happened today. They are just sitting at the checkpoint doing nothing and after that they open fire randomly."

According to police, none of the six blasts claimed more than 12 lives, far fewer than the 30 people who died in a March 8 suicide attack at Baghdad's police academy and the 33 killed in a suicide bombing two days later at a market on the city's outskirts.

But the attacks yesterday were stunning in their scope, striking widely dispersed targets from the northeast to the southwest of this sprawling city over a four-hour period.

That cast doubt on U.S. and Iraqi claims that militants are no longer capable of the sort of mass attacks that shook Baghdad in 2006 and 2007.

No group claimed responsibility for the bombings. A U.S. military spokesman, Maj. David Shoupe, said they were believed to be "a coordinated effort" by al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni group, against Shiite civilians "to instigate sectarian violence."

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office said remnants of the former regime in league with al-Qaeda carried out the attack to mark the April 7 anniversary of its founding.

The bombings also happened three days before the sixth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces during the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam's regime.

Some of the attacks occurred in heavily guarded Shiite areas, notably Sadr City, that Sunni extremists would find difficult to penetrate. None of the bombings appeared to be suicide attacks, an al-Qaeda hallmark.

That suggested the attackers could have been a Shiite splinter group or Baathist supporters, some of whom are Shiites.

An Interior Ministry official speculated the attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda in response to a decision by Iraqi officials to remove many of the blast walls and barriers around the city.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals for criticizing government policy.

Whoever was responsible, the attacks alarmed Iraqis nervous about the capabilities of their security forces.

The U.S. is thinning out its military presence in Baghdad in advance of a June 30 deadline for removing all of its combat forces from cities - required under the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement.

"I fear that violence will return again to Sadr City," said Ali Abbas, a 45-year-old father of four.

Also yesterday, the U.S. military said a U.S. soldier was killed in action the day before in Diyala province, where insurgents remain active.