A suicide car bomber attacked a hospital south of Baghdad yesterday, killing 34 people and wounding dozens more as militants stepped up their campaign of violence before elections next month.
Another car bomb exploded near a crowded market in Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, killing up to four people, police said.
The bombings are the latest in a series of suicide attacks and car- bomb explosions that have killed nearly 200 people in the last week.
A little known group called "The Supporters for the Sunni Community" claimed the Hilla attack, according to an internet statement, saying it had been carried out to avenge the killing on Wednesday of an elderly Sunni tribal leader and his family.
In February, an attack killed 125 people in Hilla in the worst single attack since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in March 2003. In other incidents, four policemen were killed as gunmen ambushed their patrol in the restive southern Baghdad district of Dora.
The US military also announced the deaths of three American soldiers killed by gunfire in Baghdad on Wednesday while a further two were killed yesterday by a roadside bomb. This brings the total of American dead since the war began to more than 2,100.
Training Iraqi security forces so they can take on the insurgency is the key plank in Washington's plan for withdrawing the 155,000 American troops in Iraq. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested that a troop reduction may start soon. But a significant pull-out is not expected until well into 2006, allowing the new government to settle in and more Iraqi police and soldiers to be fully trained.
Meanwhile, Saddam's defence lawyers have ended their boycott of the former Iraqi leader's trial and will go to court on Monday.
- (Reuters, Guardian Service)