Topic: Two bombs explode in Iraq market as U.S. reinforces security in Baghdad

Team Infidel

BAGHDAD - Two bombs exploded minutes apart Saturday in a market northeast of
Baghdad, wounding eight people, police said. U.S. reinforcements sent to
bolster security in the capital were seen taking up positions in a contested
neighborhood.

Also Saturday, the Defense Ministry and police said 55 suspected insurgents
were captured in northern Iraq following a flare-up of violence there.
Another 22 were arrested in Ramadi and two more in Baghdad, the ministry
said.

The bombings occurred Saturday in Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles)
northeast of Baghdad. The first blast destroyed a grocery store and the
second went off about five minutes later as police cars arrived at the
scene. Police said the eight wounded included seven civilians and one
policeman.

Baqouba is a religiously and ethnically mixed city, which has been the scene
of frequent violence, including Sunni insurgent attacks against U.S. and
Iraqi forces and reprisal killings and kidnappings between Sunnis and
Shiites.

As part of a campaign to curb sectarian violence in Baghdad, the U.S. Army
transferred 3,700 soldiers of the 172nd Stryker Brigade from northern Iraq
to the capital to reinforce U.S. and Iraqi security forces here.

Several Stryker vehicles were seen Saturday in Baghdad's mostly Sunni
neighborhood of Ghazaliyah in the western part. Iraqi police used
loudspeakers to encourage residents to go about their business and reopen
shops because the additional troops were there to protect them.

Separately, a U.S. military statement said a soldier assigned to the 1st
Marine Expeditionary Force died Saturday "due to non-hostile action" in
Anbar province, west of Baghdad. It did not provide details.

At least 2,587 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of
the Iraq war in March 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein, according to an
Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At
least 2,050 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's
numbers.

In other violence Saturday:

_ Hassan Wannas, a former member of Saddam's Baath Party, was killed in a
drive-by shooting in Diwaniyah, 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Baghdad,
police 1st. Lt. Raed Jabir said.

_ Chasib al-Minshadawi, 46, a former intelligence official in Saddam's
regime, was killed as he was leaving a funeral in Amarah, 290 kilometers
(180 miles) southeast of Baghdad, said police Capt. Hussein Kareem said.

On Friday, gunmen shot dead a bodyguard of a senior official of the Justice
Ministry in western Baghdad and a police commando was killed in a roadside
bomb in Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Dozens of people are killed almost every day in Iraq, mostly in the
sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni extremists. At least 43 deaths
were reported Friday, including 10 killed on Thursday at a soccer game hit
by a suicide bombing.

On Thursday, two top U.S. generals told a Senate committee that Iraq is in
danger of sliding into civil war if the sectarian violence, largely visible
in Baghdad, is not contained.

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