Baghdad bombing kills at least 37 Shiites in revenge attack

Baghdad, Iraq ? A bomb claimed by a Sunni Arab extremist group killed at least 37 Shiites in Baghdad on Saturday as they stocked up on fuel for Ramadan, just days after the U.S. military warned that sectarian bloodshed could worsen during the Islamic holy month.

The group said it carried out the bombing to avenge a Friday attack by a suspected Shiite death squad on Sunni Arab homes and mosques that killed four people in a mixed Baghdad neighborhood.

Iraq’s armed forces said they struck a blow against groups affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq, announcing the arrest of a senior leader of Ansar al-Sunnah, a radical Sunni group responsible for attacks on U.S. forces, kidnappings and beheadings.

A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in northern Baghdad, and two other American soldiers were killed and three injured when a bomb exploded near their patrol outside Hawija, 150 miles north of the capital, the U.S. command said.

A Danish soldier also was reported killed and eight were wounded in a roadside bombing in southern Iraq. He was the fourth Danish soldier to die in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein’s regime more than three years ago.

The Sunni extremist group Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba – Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions – claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on Shiites in Sadr City, a sprawling slum that is home to more than 2 million people and a stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Police said the bomb went off as people crowded behind a kerosene truck to buy fuel for Ramadan, during which people gather just after sunset for a communal meal to break a daylong abstention from food and water.

U.S. deaths

As of Saturday, at least 2,699 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,150 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

Dhiyaa Ali, a 24-year-old college student, said he heard the explosion from his nearby home and ran to the street to help people.

“I went into the flames just to get anyone left out of the fire,” he told The Associated Press. “I saw a mother holding her child, both of them burned and dead.”

Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba blamed al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia for the Friday attack that killed four people in the Hurryah neighborhood, where a Shiite militia last week openly threatened members of the Sunni minority.

“This operation comes in retaliation for the crimes perpetrated by the Mahdi Army against our Sunni people in Baghdad,” the group said, warning of more attacks. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified.