M A I N   N E W S

73 killed in Iraq attacks

Baghdad, September 14
At least 73 persons were killed today in a Baghdad car bombing and an ambush on the police in Baquba, claimed by Al-Qaida-linked militants, as fighting flared between the US troops and insurgents in Ramadi.

Fifty persons perished in Baghdad, 47 of them when a vehicle packed with explosives blew up outside the main police headquarters. More than 100 persons were wounded in the bombing, the most lethal in the country for two months.

Shrapnel tore the crowded district, littering body parts everywhere and leaving pools of congealed blood on the pavement.

Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib blamed the bombing on “Arab groups” as angry men cursed US President George W. Bush.

Further north in the Sunni Muslim hot spot of Baquba, 23 persons died in an ambush, all but one of them a policemen. The violence in Iraq has spiked in the past two weeks, amid a wave of attacks on Sunday, also claimed by militants loyal to Al-Qaida operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, and US assaults on Fallujah and Tall Afar. — AFP