At least 51 killed in Baghdad

Car bombs and mortar attacks killed at least 51 people in Baghdad on Saturday as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki met with tribal leaders from a Shiite stronghold in an attempt to mend his fractured government.

“The enemies are trying to disperse us, but they will not be able to,” Maliki said, appearing on state-run Al Iraqiya television with 65 representatives of the Sadr City slum who reportedly asked Maliki for more police to patrol the neighborhood.

Sadr City is the stronghold of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr. Thirty legislators and six Cabinet ministers loyal to Sadr suspended participation in parliament and Maliki’s government Wednesday to protest the prime minister’s meeting with President Bush last week in Amman, Jordan.

As Saturday’s meeting took place, violence continued in the capital and beyond. The Interior Ministry said 44 bodies were discovered in Baghdad during the previous 24 hours. Most of the victims were middle-aged and had been shot and stripped of identification.

At least half a dozen other Iraqis died in clashes across the country. The U.S. military reported the death of a soldier who had been injured in combat in western Al Anbar province.

In Baghdad, two car bombs exploded Saturday afternoon in the market area of Sadriya and one in the market at Hafidh Qadhi, about 100 yards away, said police Lt. Haitham Kamil. Three mortar attacks followed soon afterward in the same areas, police said.

By nightfall, no one had claimed responsibility for the attacks. Firefighters were still battling flames near the charred remains of numerous victims, a witness said.

The injured filled the hallways at three hospitals.

“We are so overwhelmed that we have left many of the injured in the hallways due to lack of space,” a medical assistant at Kindi Hospital said.

Deputy Prime Minister Salam Zikam Ali Zubaie, a member of the major Sunni legislative bloc, was targeted by gunmen while his convoy was traveling in Ghazaliya, a majority Sunni area of Baghdad, police said. He was unharmed, but one of his bodyguards was injured.

Rockets struck near the office of Adnan Dulaimi, leader of a major Sunni party within Zubaie’s bloc.

Dulaimi said he was meeting with Sunni and Shiite leaders at a northwest Baghdad mosque to discuss local security at the time of the attack. They watched five rockets strike the area, hitting a school and a mosque, then a nearby house, killing two men and injuring a third.

Dulaimi said he believed that he was targeted by Shiites and that Maliki’s government has not protected him.

“I think today is part of the latest escalation, every day hurting and disastrous events that destroy the country and especially Baghdad,” he said, urging Shiite politicians who are boycotting Maliki’s government to return.

Maliki met Bush a week after bombings and mortar attacks in Sadr City killed at least 215 people and left more than 200 wounded.

The Sadr City tribal leaders who met with Maliki for a half hour Saturday asked him to hire more local people to patrol their Baghdad neighborhood, increasing the police force from 1,460 to 7,000 officers, said Samir Awad, an Iraqi journalist who helped arrange the meeting.

Awad said the Sadr City representatives also proposed a nationwide meeting of tribal leaders from various groups.

In Jordan, Abdelaziz Hakim, a prominent Iraqi Shiite figure who leads a parliamentary bloc comparable in size to Sadr’s, spoke out against suggestions that an international summit could address sectarian divisions. Hakim insisted that Iraq’s conflicts are political, not sectarian, and could be resolved internally. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had suggested the meeting.

“It is illogical, unacceptable and incorrect for the Iraqi people that issues related to their self-determination and destiny be decided and molded through international conferences,” said Hakim, who leads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. He is scheduled to meet with Bush on Monday.

Meanwhile, Iraqi and U.S. troops launched a joint operation in Baqubah, a city about 35 miles northwest of Baghdad that has been under curfew since Friday morning because of insurgent attacks.

Gunmen were walking the streets Saturday, attacking homes and killing residents, witnesses said.

“This military operation is designed to separate the terrorists from the honorable people of Baqubah and better enable the Iraqi security forces to maintain a secure and stable environment,” said Col. David Sutherland, commander of 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division.

Military officials said three suspected insurgents were killed in Baqubah and 44 were detained. Soldiers also freed a 16-year-old captive who had been held for 25 days.

U.S. forces in helicopters, jets, scout planes and 20 vehicles launched another assault late Saturday in Duluiya, about 55 miles north of Baghdad, clashing with gunmen, police said.

Baghdad’s Yarmouk Hospital came under fire from attackers with machine guns.

They traded fire with police and soldiers at the front gate for half an hour, killing a police officer and injuring three people before the attackers escaped, police said. Staff members said the hospital manager had earlier received anonymous threats that the building would be hit with mortar rounds or bombs if it continued to treat police and soldiers.

Among the other Iraqis killed Saturday were two people on their way to a funeral in the holy city of Najaf, a contractor in the northern city of Mosul who supplied food to U.S. troops, and two people in the southern city of Iskandariya -- a driver killed by a roadside bomb and a 25-year-old man shot by U.S. troops while he was attempting to plant a bomb.

molly.hennessy-fiske@

latimes.com

Times staff writers Raheem Salman, Suhail Ahmad, Saif Rasheed and Said Rifai and special correspondents in Baqubah and Sadr City contributed to this report.