16 die as violence continues across Iraq

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, August 15, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A suicide bombing in the north and street battles hundreds of miles away in a Shiite holy city in the south claimed 16 lives Tuesday, demonstrating the tenuous security in Iraq as the U.S. focuses on curbing sectarian violence in Baghdad.

Nine people died in the suicide attack outside the regional party headquarters of Iraq’s president in the northern city of Mosul; seven were killed in the fighting between Iraqi forces and followers of an anti-American cleric in Karbala.

The suicide driver detonated his vehicle at the Mosul office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party of President Jalal Talabani, killing five civilians and four security guards, police Col. Abdul-Kareem Ahmed al-Jibouri said. Forty-one people were wounded by the blast, which heavily damaged the one-story building and set 17 cars on fire, he said.

In Karbala, a Shiite holy city 270 miles south of Mosul, gunbattles broke out after police raided the office of Mahmoud al-Hassani, a Shiite cleric known for anti-American and anti-Iranian views. Police said they were searching for weapons.

Al-Hassani’s followers responded by attacking police stations and checkpoints in at least five areas of the city, residents and officials said. Gunmen in civilian clothing fired Kalashnikov rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at Iraqi army patrols.

A regional health official said three Iraqi police officers and four gunmen were killed and 17 people were wounded in the clashes.

Late Tuesday, residents said tensions were rising in another Shiite city, Nasiriyah, with al-Hassani’s followers brandishing weapons and blocking some streets.

The U.S. command is rushing 12,000 U.S. and Iraqi reinforcements to curb unrest in the capital, which U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has described as the greatest threat to Iraq’s future.