Iraq Struck by Wave of Bomb Attacks, Killing 13

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and SUADAD AL-SALHY
Published: August 10, 2008

BAGHDAD — At least 13 people were killed, including an American soldier, and scores were wounded in a wave of attacks across Iraq on Sunday, military and security officials said.

The soldier died along with four Iraqis in a calculated, two-prong attack on Baghdad’s outskirts, the deadliest of the day, the United States military said.

The attack began when a bomb exploded around 2 p.m. at a vacant house in Tarmiya, a largely Sunni district and once a major stronghold of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown militant Sunni group that American intelligence has said is foreign led. Shortly after Iraqi and American security forces reached the scene, they were attacked by a suicide bomber and by gunmen.

A local security official said the American tally of five dead was too low. He said 10 Iraqis — three members of the Awakening Council, a citizens patrol, and seven others — were killed and 20 others wounded. The military said two American soldiers were wounded.

While the death toll nationwide on Sunday was not as high as in some recent outbursts of violence, the number of attacks was higher than usual.

Lt. Col. Steve Stover, an American military spokesman in Baghdad, said the number of attacks in Baghdad was still down, averaging about four a day, compared with 40 per day last June and 10 per day earlier this year.

Hailing the improved security, Iraqi officials presided Sunday over the dedication of a newly renovated Parliament building outside the heavily fortified Green Zone. The thump of an explosion, however, could be heard as the ceremony was starting.

Several Interior Ministry officials theorized that some of the attacks — at least six occurred in Baghdad — were related to the impasse in Parliament over the provincial council election law.

Lawmakers recessed last week without passing the legislation. They were stymied by disagreements among Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens about the status of the ethnically mixed northern city of Kirkuk. The dispute has raised tensions and led to several attacks in the north of Iraq.

“When there is fighting between politicians in Parliament, there are many explosions in the street,â€