18 die in Baghdad car bombings

Los Angeles Times
By Tina Susman
July 24, 2007

BAGHDAD — A series of car bombs killed at least 18 people in Baghdad on Monday, and the U.S. military announced the deaths of four more troops on the eve of new U.S.-Iran talks aimed at quelling Iraq's violence.

Today's meeting will bring the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, together for the second time since an initial round of talks was held in Baghdad on May 28. That session did little to mend the sour relations between the two countries, who blame each other for the sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq.

The United States will use the forum to repeat its accusation that Iran is providing weapons and other aid to Shiite Muslim militias and Sunni extremists. It says those weapons include roadside bombs such as those blamed for three of the four U.S. troop deaths reported Monday.

Iraq and the United States also say that Iranian-supplied weapons are being used in most of the attacks on Baghdad's Green Zone, the fortified enclave that houses most U.S. and Iraqi government offices. American officials also accuse Iran of providing weaponry that can penetrate heavily armored vehicles.

Iran denies meddling in the Iraq war and will use the talks to repeat demands that five Iranians held by U.S. forces in Iraq be freed. Iran says the men are diplomats, but the United States says they are covert operatives.

Monday's violence targeted Karada, a mainly Shiite neighborhood that in recent months has been bombed several times. Two of the blasts Monday occurred almost simultaneously and just a few hundred feet from each other. Witnesses said one appeared aimed at a police patrol and another hit a market.

Hours after the blasts, which took place about 10:40 a.m., the smell of burning rubber and other debris still filled the street. Soot and scraps of burned metal covered the pavement. Near the site of the market blast, a worker stood atop an ambulance with a broom, trying to knock something out of a tree. Asked what the man was aiming for, a bystander replied angrily, "Flesh."

A motor scooter lay in the back seat of a gutted and burned car, where it had been hurled by one of the blasts. A large piece of blue metal, which police said was from the car bomb, lay nearby, along with a black slipper and a child's pink shoe.

Also Monday, police reported finding 24 unidentified bodies in Baghdad, all believed to be victims of sectarian violence.

The four military deaths occurred over the weekend: Three soldiers died from roadside bombs and one Marine died of undisclosed causes in Al Anbar province, the U.S. military said. At least 3,636 American troops have been killed in the Iraq theater since the U.S. invasion of March 2003, according to the icasualties.orgwebsite.

Iraq's government says it has pressured Iran to stay out of the violence, to no avail. "They are actually playing a dangerous game by trying to drive the Americans out of Iraq by further deteriorating the security situation," said the Iraqi national security advisor, Mowaffak Rubaie. He said most of the mortars and rockets that hit the Green Zone are coming from Iran and are being fired by militia forces trained by Tehran. A U.S. Embassy spokesman agreed.

Iran will probably raise the issue of the Mujahedin Khalq organization, the armed Iranian exile group, during the talks with the Americans, said Hamid Reza Haji Babaie, a lawmaker close to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "The destiny of the MKO, its disbanding and removal from their camp in Iraq, is also part of the agenda because we believe the destiny of this terrorist group is related to the security of Iraq," he said.

Iran has demanded that the group, labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, be removed from Iraq. But some U.S. policymakers see the group as a potential tool against the Iranian regime.

Bush administration officials have been undecided on the question of whether Iran would be willing to help stabilize Iraq. Some argue that Tehran has no interest in helping the United States, its archrival for nearly three decades.

But Mahmoud Sadri, a journalist close to former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, said Tehran's foreign policy establishment is more pragmatic than many believe. "I think the economic situation, on the whole, makes the position of the Iranian government ripe for reaching an understanding and compromise," Sadri, editor of the Kargozaran newspaper, said in an interview Monday.

Despite the failure of past talks to bring reconciliation between the countries, diplomats say such meetings are crucial.

"Our emphasis is on having a good relationship, and we think this can be accomplished through dialogue," said Iraq's deputy foreign minister, Labid Abawi. "It is not in the interest of Iran or Iraq to have tension between us, especially since both of us have suffered due to the war launched by Saddam Hussein," Abawi said, referring to the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.