KEY POINTS:
MAHMUDIYA, Iraq - A car bomb killed 17 people and wounded two dozen in a town south of Baghdad today, the latest in a spate of attacks outside the Iraqi capital since a new security plan took effect there.
The bombing came as thousands of Iraqis streamed to
the holy southern city of Najaf to heed a call by fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for a big anti-American protest on Monday.
Sadr -- who blames the US-led invasion for Iraq's unrelenting violence -- has urged Iraqis to protest on a day that coincides with the fourth anniversary of when American forces swept into central Baghdad in 2003.
The cleric, who has been keeping a low profile for several months, also called on his Mehdi Army militia and Iraqi security forces to stop fighting in the volatile city of Diwaniya and accused US forces of fomenting civil strife.
Iraqi and US forces have clashed with militiamen in Diwaniya since launching an operation on Friday to wrest control of the southern city from the Mehdi Army. The Pentagon says the militia is the greatest threat to peace in Iraq.
Brigadier Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for a US-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad, said a 24-hour vehicle ban would be in force in the capital from 5am (1300 NZT) on Monday.
"There will be protests marking the fourth anniversary. We don't want to give the terrorists a chance to use this opportunity," Moussawi said.
The mayor of Mahmudiya, Muaid al-Amiri, said the car bomb killed 17 people.
It targeted industrial workshops and largely destroyed a three-storey building. Many smaller shops were levelled.
"Three of us and a young boy were sitting in a store selling spare parts for cars when there was a huge explosion. Debris from the roof fell on me," said one wounded man, who gave his name as Sadeq, lying on a hospital bed in the town, 30 km south of Baghdad.
North of Baghdad, four US soldiers were killed in an explosion near their vehicle on Saturday, the military said.
It said the blast took place in Diyala province, another area where violence has spiked since the start of the US-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad.
What largely began as a Sunni Arab insurgency against US and Iraqi forces following the 2003 invasion of Iraq has since transformed into a bloody sectarian conflict between Shi'ites and once-dominant Sunni Arabs.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the past year alone. More than 3,270 American soldiers have been killed since the US-led invasion.
Pope Benedict, in his Easter message, lamented the "continual slaughter" in Iraq.
"Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees," the Pope said.
The US military said violence had dropped in Baghdad under the new crackdown, with a 26 per cent decline in "murders and executions" between February and March, and a 60 per cent fall between the last week of March and the first week of April.
"We are encouraged by the positive signs ... but there is still a long way to go ... We are still at the beginning of this plan," chief US military spokesman Major-General William Caldwell told a news conference in Baghdad.
Underlining the hurdles ahead, a suicide car bomb in southern Baghdad killed seven people, police said.
US President George W. Bush is sending 30,000 additional American troops to Iraq, mainly for the Baghdad push. All reinforcements will have arrived by the end of May.
Thousands of supporters of Sadr boarded buses and rode in cars to the holy southern city on Sunday.
The Baghdad-Najaf road was packed with hundreds of vehicles crammed with passengers waving Iraqi flags and chanting religious and anti-US slogans.
"No, no, no to America ... Moqtada, yes, yes, yes," they chanted as they converged towards Najaf.
The US military says Sadr is in neighbouring Iran. His aides insist the young cleric is in Iraq and have denied suggestions he fled to Iran to escape the new crackdown.
- REUTERS
