Baghdad: Suicide bombers infiltrated a line of police recruits and a crowd of Shiite pilgrims on Thursday as insurgents killed 125 civilians and five US soldiers, escalating attacks while political factions worked to forge a coalition government.
The stark surge in post-election violence produced familiar but heartrending images on a day that was the fourth-deadliest since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
A woman and an infant girl in a bright red jumpsuit lay in a pool of blood, their faces covered by a sheet as men ferried the wounded in pushcarts in Karbala, 80 kilometres south of Baghdad. Ball bearings lay scattered on the bare earth next to Shiite Islam's holiest shrine in Iraq.
After the devastating attack in Ramadi, a Sunni insurgent stronghold about 115 kilometres west of the capital, police recruits got back in line to continue the screening process, said Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool. They were apparently desperate for a relatively well-paying job in the impoverished area.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, denounced the violence as an attempt to derail the political process at a time when progress was being made toward a broad-based government that would include Sunni Arabs and possibly weaken the insurgency.
With the two-day death toll reaching 183, Iraq's main Shiite religious party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, issued a veiled threat to Sunnis supporting the insurgency.
"Not allowing these two ministries to do their job means exposing helpless Iraqis to ruthless terrorists," SCIRI said. "They should know that the patience of our people will not last for a long time with these sectarian dirty crimes."
But the party also condemned policies it said were imposed by the US-led coalition that were hampering Iraqi security forces' counterterrorism work. The US has increased its oversight of Shiite-dominated security forces following widespread charges of abuse, especially of Sunni Arab detainees.
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