Mortars And Bombings Strike Communities North Of Baghdad, Killing At Least 11

Saturday, August 18th 2007, 2:57 pm

By: News On 6

BAGHDAD (AP) _ Mortar shells slammed into a Shiite enclave north of Baghdad, killing at least seven people on Saturday, police said, while officials in Kirkuk warned that a string of deadly bombings showed that insurgents were finding new ways to thwart security measures.

About 16 mortar shells rained on houses in the Sharqiya residential area in Khalis, a frequent target of suspected Sunni insurgents about 50 miles north of Baghdad in the volatile Diyala province, police said.

The toll stood at seven killed after three people died of their wounds, an Iraqi army officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. He said a 4-month-old girl was among those killed and her mother was among the 18 wounded.

Farther north, storekeepers in Kirkuk swept broken glass and other debris from the bloodstained pavement hours after a series of bombs struck commercial areas in the disputed city, killing at least four people and wounding 38.

The attacks started Friday evening when a bomb struck a mainly Turkomen open-air market in the city center, killing two people and wounding 25, police Col. Burhan Tayeb Taha said.

Three more explosions struck the city within three hours, killing two people and wounding 13, Taha said. Among the wounded was 4-year-old Diyar Mohammed.

``I was there to buy a toy for him and he was injured when shrapnel hit his head,'' his mother Narmeen Salih said as she sat beside him in the hospital.

The apparently coordinated attacks came four days after a quadruple suicide truck bombing that killed hundreds of members of the minority religious Yazidi sect in northwestern Iraq.

Minority sects such as the Yazidis and Turkomen are especially vulnerable as militants seek new targets to avoid a U.S.-Iraqi military crackdown on Baghdad and surrounding areas to stop violence among warring Sunni and Shiite factions.

The U.S. commander overseeing the cleanup in the northwestern villages that were devastated by Tuesday's attack said al-Qaida in Iraq fighters were taking aim at remote communities after being chased out of the larger cities such as Mosul and Tal Afar.

``They're moving out of the cities into these hamlets and villages in order to establish safe havens,'' said Col. Stephen Twitty, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team in Mosul, another northern city to the west of Kirkuk.

``You can easily build a car bomb in someone's garage, in someone's village somewhere and those are the things that we have to continue to just put pressure on,'' he told AP Radio.

Authorities in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, said the main street had been closed to vehicles to prevent the threat of car bombs. But Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir, the general-director of police in Kirkuk, said the explosives that struck Friday were apparently wrapped in plastic bags and hidden in the garbage, and he appealed to civilians to be alert and report anything suspicious.

``The terrorists are changing their tactics in carrying out their crimes, so police and civilians should be more aware and open-minded to ensure security,'' he said.

The U.S. military also has warned that militants will try to step up attacks this month in a bid to upstage a pivotal progress report on Iraq due to be delivered to Congress in September.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, trying to shore up his crumbling government, and President Jalal Talabani addressed a conference of Iraqi diplomats in Baghdad, stressing the need for friendly relations and support from all neighboring countries.

The Shiite-led government has been accused of bias toward Iran and against mainly Sunni Arab countries in the region, as well as threats of a Turkish incursion to face separatist Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

``Iraq has exerted and is still exerting great efforts to form the best relations with the Arab countries,'' Talabani said. But, he warned, ``if things are not solved in a friendly way, Iraq is not as weak as they think.''

Al-Maliki has made a series of speeches in recent days as he tries to save his paralyzed government from collapse, even traveling on Friday to Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit to address Sunni tribal chieftains.

On Saturday, he cited recent overtures from Sunni tribes and militant groups as proof of progress. ``These are all the fruits of the reconciliation process. There is still much to be done.''

Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, whose moderate Iraqi Islamic Party has refused to join al-Maliki's new alliance intended to ensure a parliamentary majority to pass key U.S.-backed legislation, got a boisterous welcome from the mostly Sunni detainees at a crowded prison. His party claims the inmates are largely caught up in random raids by Shiite-dominated security forces.

``There is a new procedure in the works to review your files. Just be patient for a while,'' he told the prisoners, often crouching to be able to address them face-to-face since a tarp covered the upper half of the bars. ``Those who are outside are not much better off than you. It is true that you are in prison, but at least you live in safety here, believe me you are more secure than ones outside.''

Videotape of the Friday prison visit was released by al-Hashemi's office.