Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Three car bombs on Saturday in different parts of Iraq killed at least nine people and wounded some 58 others, official sources said.

    A car bomb, which targeted a crowd of day-long laborers, went off Saturday at the northern Iraqi town of Tuz Khurmato, 200 kmnorth of Baghdad, killing two of them and wounding 11 others,local provincial police source said.

    The car bomb detonated in the morning at a square in central the town where workers looking for a day-long job gather, killing two laborers and wounding up to 11 others, the source from the Joint Coordination Center of Salahudin province told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Two more car bombs and a roadside bomb attacks in Baghdad and south of the city, killed seven more people and wounding up to 47 others as violence continued in Iraq on Saturday.

    Five people were killed and 22 others wounded when a car bomb detonated near the Sadrain Hospital in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of Sadr City, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

    The Sadr City is a predominant Shiite neighborhood, which is the stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a militant group loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

    In separate incident, two people were killed and up to 22 others wounded in Hilla City, some 100 km south of Baghdad, when a third car bomb parking at a crowded popular market detonated ataround 10:00 a.m. (0700 GMT), the source added.

    In another incident, three policemen were wounded in a roadside bomb attack targeted their patrol in Baghdad's southwestern neighborhood of Hai al-Amil.

    Violence persists in Baghdad despite the presence of tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers across the capital in a major security crackdown aimed at curbing insurgency and sectarian violence in the war-torn country.