Death toll rises as Iraq insurgents strike at will

A wave of violence has engulfed Iraq with bombs killing at least 60 Iraqis and six US soldiers in a wave of attacks following the formation of a new government after three months of wrangling.

The streets of Baghdad were largely empty yesterday morning after 17 bombs had exploded across Iraq the previous day. The attacks show there is apparently no end to the number of suicide bombers willing to die in Iraq.

The six American soldiers were killed, and two others wounded, by roadside bombs, the US military said yesterday.

Their deaths bring the total for US soldiers killed this month to 48. Four of the dead were killed by a roadside bomb near Tal Afar, an insurgent stronghold west of Mosul.

Two other soldiers died in Baghdad. Some 1,579 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the invasion two years ago.

The suicide bombers are mostly pious young non-Iraqis, seeking martyrdom fighting the infidel in Iraq.

Many come from Sunni Arab countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Yemen.

Their victims are frequently Iraqi police or civilians caught by the blast. The suicide bombers have less success against the US military, who suffer most of their losses from powerful bombs planted beside the road and detonated by a control wire or a remote control device adapted from a car door opener or a children's toy.

Attacks in Baghdad yesterday killed at least 10 people and wounded a further 32, said officials, on top of the 50 who died on Friday.

A suicide car bomb exploded yesterday near the offices of the National Dialogue Council, a coalition of 10 Sunni Arab factions, who have been negotiating a stake in the new government which is dominated by Shia Muslims and Kurds. Two civilians were killed and 18 wounded.

The insurgent factions responsible totally reject participation in the administration. The suicide bomb attacks show that, although the Iraqi security forces claim to be making progress in breaking up insurgent cells, these can still launch co-ordinated assaults in different parts of Iraq.

There were explosions not only in and around Baghdad but in the far south near Basra and in the north in Arbil, a Kurdish city, where a bomb disposal expert was killed.

"It is very difficult to stop suicide bombers because they don't care if they die," Karim Sinjari, the Interior Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said in Arbil before the attack on Friday.

Mr Sinjari confirmed that most of the suicide bombers are foreign but added that they could not operate without an infrastructure organised by Iraqis.

- INDEPENDENT