Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

The scene of car bomb attack in southern Baghdad on late July 5, 2007. The car bomb explosion killed 17 people and wounded 25 others outside a restaurant in a Shi'ite neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, police said.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

    BAGHDAD, July 7 (Xinhua) -- A spate of deadly bomb attacks since late Friday has left at least 179 Iraqis dead and some 286 others injured, while the U.S. military reported nine of its soldiers killed.

    In a deadliest attack on Saturday morning, up to 156 civilians were killed and some 255 others wounded when a truck loaded with large amount of explosives detonated at a crowded outdoor market in the village of Amerli near the town of Tuz-Khurmato, a source from the U.S. and Iraqi Joint Coordination Center of Salahudin province said.

    Twenty more people went missing by the blast, according to the source who said that rescue teams continued removing debris and searched for more victims in the mixed Shiite Kurdish and Turkoman village, some 90 km east of Tikrit, said the source.

    The powerful blast devastated 50 houses, 25 shops and charred 50 civilian cars, along with damages to the town's electricity grid and drinking water pipelines, the source added.

    Late on Friday, a suicide bomber killed 22 people and wounded 15 others when he blew up his explosive-belt at a funeral tent in Garghoush village near the Sa'diyah town, some 70 km northeast of Baquba, capital of Diyala province, local police source said.

    Four people were reportedly went missing, apparently their bodies were not found after the explosion, the source added.

    Local Shiite Kurdish residents in the town blamed extremist Sunni militants of al-Qaida for the attack as the volatile Diyala province has been the scene of a U.S.-led massive assault in an attempt to hunt down al-Qaida operatives, according to the source.

    In Baghdad, another suicide car bomber struck a checkpoint manned by Iraqi army soldiers and policemen and detonated in the afternoon in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of Zaiyounah, killing a soldier and wounding 16 people, including four more soldiers, the police said.

    In other violence, the U.S. military said Saturday nine of its soldiers were killed and eight others wounded during the past two days largely around the capital.

    More than 3,595 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the Iraq war broke out in March 2003, according to media count based on Pentagon figures.

Turkey condemns suicide attack in N Iraq

    ANKARA, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Saturday strongly condemned the suicide attack in the north of Iraq that killed more than 150 people, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

    Gul expressed sorrow over the tragedy and offered his condolences to the victims in the deadliest attack this year, the report said. Full story