Car bomb kills 25 in southwest Baghdad

BAGHDAD – Twenty-five people were killed and 60 wounded when a car bomb tore through a busy market area in southwest Baghdad yesterday, police said.

At least two buildings were completely destroyed and many others badly damaged when the bomb went off near a popular outdoor market in Amil, a mostly Shi’ite district. It was the worst car bomb attack in Baghdad since May 6 when 35 people were killed in neighbouring Bayaa, another Shi’ite district which has been a repeated target of attacks blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.Thousands of extra US and Iraqi troops have been deployed around Baghdad and other areas in a three-month-old security crackdown aimed at dragging Iraq back from the brink of sectarian civil war.US President George W Bush is under pressure from his Republican Party to show progress in Iraq by September, but at the same time has rejected timetables for a US pullout proposed by Democrats.General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, will deliver a progress report on the troop build-up in September.”I see it as an important moment, because David Petraeus says that’s when he’ll have a pretty good assessment as to what the effects of the surge has been,” Bush told Reuters in Washington.The security crackdown is designed to buy time for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government to meet a series of political targets set by Washington.These “benchmarks” aim to promote national reconciliation and to draw Sunni Arabs, dominant under Saddam Hussein, into the political process and away from the insurgency.US officials say the security crackdown has helped reduce the number of targeted sectarian killings between Sunni Arabs and majority Shi’ites but car bombings are still frequent.Nampa-ReutersIt was the worst car bomb attack in Baghdad since May 6 when 35 people were killed in neighbouring Bayaa, another Shi’ite district which has been a repeated target of attacks blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.Thousands of extra US and Iraqi troops have been deployed around Baghdad and other areas in a three-month-old security crackdown aimed at dragging Iraq back from the brink of sectarian civil war.US President George W Bush is under pressure from his Republican Party to show progress in Iraq by September, but at the same time has rejected timetables for a US pullout proposed by Democrats.General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, will deliver a progress report on the troop build-up in September.”I see it as an important moment, because David Petraeus says that’s when he’ll have a pretty good assessment as to what the effects of the surge has been,” Bush told Reuters in Washington.The security crackdown is designed to buy time for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government to meet a series of political targets set by Washington.These “benchmarks” aim to promote national reconciliation and to draw Sunni Arabs, dominant under Saddam Hussein, into the political process and away from the insurgency.US officials say the security crackdown has helped reduce the number of targeted sectarian killings between Sunni Arabs and majority Shi’ites but car bombings are still frequent.Nampa-Reuters