Shiite shrine district hit by twin bombings

Iraqi policemen search a car at a checkpoint in the Sadr City area of Baghdad. Two car bombings shook the streets leading to Baghdad's most revered Shiite Muslim shrine on Wednesday, but police disabled a bomb in a third car.

? Twin car bombings struck intersections near Baghdad’s most revered Shiite shrine Wednesday. The military said the buildup of some 30,000 extra U.S. troops aimed at stopping such attacks is nearly complete but it could take up to two months for the newly arrived reinforcements to be fully effective.

That would come just weeks before Gen. David Petraeus is due to report to President Bush and Congress in September on the security operation amid Democratic-led calls to start bringing American troops home from an increasingly unpopular war.

The military also announced that four more U.S. soldiers were killed. The deaths raised to at least 3,498 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The nearly simultaneous blasts in the Kazimiyah district in northern Baghdad occurred dangerously close to the golden-domed mosque that holds the remains of the Imam Moussa Kadhim, one of the 12 major Shiite saints. At least seven people were killed, according to police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.

The first car exploded at al-Zahraa Square, an intersection a half-mile from the shrine in an area of closely packed homes and shops that is largely controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.

“We rushed over and saw people dead or injured in burning cars, and we tried to save them while waiting for the firemen and ambulances,” said Hussein Alwan, a 50-year-old owner of a bakery.

That was followed within minutes by the explosion of another unoccupied car left 350 yards away at the Aden intersection, at the western entrance to the neighborhood. Police, meanwhile, found and disabled a third car bomb on a nearby shopping street in the Kazimiyah district, police said.

Militia violence

Police also found the bullet-riddled bodies of at least 47 men showing signs of torture, 34 of them in Baghdad, the apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by Shiite militias.

The high number of such execution-style killings signals a rise in militia violence. There had been a lull after al-Sadr ordered his fighters to lay low to avoid confrontations during the U.S.-security crackdown that began Feb. 14.

The militants have shown increasing impatience as the U.S. and the Iraqi military fail to stop the suicide attacks and car bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents led by al-Qaida in Iraq – despite the influx of troops and stepped-up security measures.

The last of five brigades and support troops scheduled to reinforce U.S. forces in Baghdad and surrounding areas will arrive in the “next couple of weeks,” but it may take up to two months for the forces to establish themselves fully and get used to working with the Iraqis, Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner told reporters Wednesday.

The Bush administration has warned that the troop buildup will result in more U.S. casualties as American soldiers increasingly come into contact with enemy forces and concentrate on the streets of Baghdad and remote outposts.

Four U.S. soldiers were reported killed in separate incidents since Tuesday – roadside bombings in eastern Baghdad and near Beiji north of the capital, and an explosion and enemy gunfire in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

In southern Iraq, three gunmen in a speeding automobile shot and killed a junior aide to the country’s pre-eminent Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, police and a member of the ayatollah’s office said.

Sheik Raheem al-Hasnawi was killed late Tuesday, hours after the shooting death of a Shiite cleric from al-Sadr’s office.

Nobody claimed responsibility for either attack, but Shiite rivalries have been on the rise between militant followers of al-Sadr and police who are loyal to al-Sistani.

Northeast of Baghdad, in several sections of the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, Iraqi troops and U.S. helicopter gunships attacked Sunni militants of al-Qaida in Iraq, according to police officials. A medical official said the bodies of eight gunmen were brought to the hospital. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared being targets of violence.

The U.S. military said a joint team of American and Iraqi forces used air and ground firepower to destroy anti-Iraqi forces operating in Kabat village, near Baqouba, but it did not give any casualty figures.

Other developments

Bergner, meanwhile, announced the death of a militant identified as al-Qaida in Iraq emir Muhammad Mahmud ‘Abd Kazim Husayn al-Mashadani, also known as Abu Abdullah. Bergner said the slain suspect was part of a car bomb network and that three other suspected militants were detained in the operation Tuesday.

Separately, officials of the oil workers’ union threatened an open-ended strike in southern Iraq if the central government does not meet workers’ demands for better wages and working conditions.

Members of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions ended a two-day strike against the Southern Pipeline Co. on Tuesday after their representatives received assurances from local officials in Basra that the Iraqi government would study their demands. A longer strike would further cripple an oil-dependent Iraqi economy already devastated by war.