22 Iraqis Killed in Suicide Attacks in Baghdad, Hillah

Suicide bombers struck Saturday in Baghdad and a Shiite Muslim city south of the capital in attacks that killed 22 people and injured nearly 50, Iraqi officials said. One of the attackers targeted bystanders and police officers who had rushed to the scene of an earlier blast.

In the first attack, a bomber blew himself up outside a recruiting station for police special forces in west Baghdad, killing at least 16 people, including 11 recruits, police and hospital officials said. Twenty-two people were injured.

The other attacks occurred in Hillah, a mostly Shiite city 60 miles south of Baghdad. Police Capt. Muthana Khalid Ali said the first blast occurred when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt at a police checkpoint in the city center.

Six policemen were killed, Ali said.

About 10 minutes later, a second suicide bomber blew himself up in the crowd of police and civilians who had rushed to the scene, Ali said. Twenty-six people were injured, but only the attacker died, said Dr. Hashim Suleiman of Hillah General Hospital.

On Feb. 28, a suicide car bomber struck a crowd of police and army recruits at a health center in Hillah, killing 125 and wounding more than 140 in one of the deadliest attacks since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.

In other violence Saturday, three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing northeast of Baghdad, their commander said. Gunmen also assassinated a police lieutenant colonel in the northern city of Mosul, officials said.

Two other people were killed when a bomb hidden in a vegetable cart exploded Saturday in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

The blast occurred minutes after mourners passed by with the body of an aide to Shiite Muslim leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who was slain Friday outside a Baghdad mosque. The body of Kamal Ghuraifi was being carried through the town en route to burial in the city of Najaf.

Also Saturday, a policeman and a female relative traveling in a civilian car were killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Kirkuk, authorities said.

Insurgent attacks have raised tensions among Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups and sparked fears of civil war. In a statement Saturday, the leader of Iraq’s largest Shiite political party warned against sectarian conflict and called on the Iraqi government to step up efforts to fight militants.

“We stress the importance of being alert and cautious not to be carried away toward the sectarian strife that our enemies want for us,” said Abdelaziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.