New violence kills 30 in Iraq

Baghdad - Violence throughout Iraq on Thursday killed at least 30 people, a day after a spate of attacks took at least 151 lives.

A suicide car bomber in southern Baghdad killed 16 police and wounded 21 others -- a combination of police and civilians, a police source said.

All of the dead were members of the Quick Reaction Force.

The 8 a.m. (midnight EDT) attack took place in the capital's Dora district.

Four hours later, two more suicide car bombs struck the same area of south Baghdad, also targeting the QRF, police said. According to authorities, four police died in the attacks and nine were wounded along with a civilian. Police also engaged in a firefight with insurgents.

At about the same time, the Green Zone -- a fortified section of central Baghdad, housing military and government offices -- came under mortar or rocket fire. There were no reports of casualties.

Also Thursday, three pilgrims, en route to Karbala, were killed by gunmen in an eastern Baghdad neighborhood known as Camp Sara, police said.

Several hours later, a roadside bomb exploded near a bus transferring employees of the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, killing one person and wounding 16 others, according to police. The attack took place between Camp Sara and New Baghdad.

Also in eastern Baghdad, a suicide car bomb exploded near a U.S. Army convoy, wounding three soldiers and destroying their vehicle, a U.S. military spokesman said.

In northwestern Baghdad, police discovered three male bodies near the Shiite neighborhood of Shu'la.

In the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, two police were killed when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb, a police spokesman said.

Also in the north, a bomb exploded at the main entrance to the Shiite Rawdhat al-Wadi mosque in central Mosul, killing Iman Hikmat Hussein Ali and wounding three other people, police and hospital sources said.

Wednesday represented one of the war's most violent days.

A purported claim from al Qaeda in Iraq said the strikes were in response to the U.S.-Iraqi offensive to root out insurgents in the northern city of Tal Afar, and a U.S. military official said the strikes bore the hallmarks of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who leads that group.

That claim was followed by the broadcast Wednesday of an audiotape of a man identified by the Al Arabiya network as al-Zarqawi declaring war on Shiites in Iraq.

"The al Qaeda organization in Iraq," the voice said in Arabic, "has declared all-out war against Shiites in all of Iraq, wherever they are in Iraq."

The voice, which CNN has not confirmed is al-Zarqawi's, continues, "As for the government, servants of the crusaders headed by Ibrahim al-Jaafari, they have declared a war on Sunnis in Tal Afar. You have begun and started the attacks and you won't see mercy from us."

Al-Jaafari is the interim prime minister of Iraq. On Wednesday he was in the United States visiting the Detroit, Michigan, area.

Al-Jaafari's office condemned what it called "appalling terrorist attacks."

"The attacks show their desperation and cowardice in the face of the setbacks they have suffered in Tal Afar and elsewhere at the hands of Iraq's security forces," al-Jaafari's office said in a statement.

In his remarks, al-Jaafari referred to the most deadly attack, when at least 112 died and more than 200 people were wounded at a day-labor pick-up site in the Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya. A bus exploded near a meeting point for the workers, who gather there to pick up maintenance and construction jobs.

The attacks came on the day Iraq's constitutional committee submitted its final amended version of the country's draft constitution to the United Nations, which is to print copies of the text for distribution to Iraqi citizens ahead of a referendum on its content scheduled to be held in October.

The document has the support of the Shiite-Kurdish dominated government, but has been opposed by Sunni Arab lawmakers and other leading voices from that community.

U.S. and Iraqi leaders had expected an increase in violence as the referendum approached, and they have been concerned about Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence in Baghdad, Tal Afar and other cities and towns where the largely Sunni Arab insurgency has a presence.

Details about the attacks were passed along to CNN by Iraqi authorities, and several strikes appear to have the ring of Sunni-on-Shiite sectarian blows.

A suicide car bomb targeted shoppers in the busy Shiite neighborhood of Shu'la in northwestern Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 22. In Taji, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of Baghdad, men wearing Iraqi army uniforms stormed homes and pulled out 17 Shiite men, shooting them execution style, police said. Taji is a mixed Sunni-Shiite community.

Farther north, near Baquba, a leader from a powerful Shiite tribe in the area and his nephew were assassinated, according to his family.

Other strikes were aimed at Iraqi and U.S. convoys and personnel, killing and wounding many. In one strike, the suicide bomber was a Syrian, according to Col. Dan Grymes, effects coordinator with the 3rd Infantry Division.

Grymes told CNN that Wednesday's attacks around Iraq's capital bore the hallmarks of the al-Zarqawi group, saying the "modus operandi is his. Most of the time, not all of the time, when we see multiple VBIEDs, he's behind the attacks. Only he can put together a coordinated attack," he said. VBIEDs are vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.

Grymes, whose job is to coordinate efforts between U.S. and Iraqi forces, said analysis of the attacks would take time, but the wanted militant al-Zarqawi was frequently behind spikes in violence.

"We think today is kind of a nexus of the constitution and the Tal Afar outcome, which is why this thing came to head today," he said. "These spikes of activity are all to grab headlines."

He said previous operations -- such as Operation Lightning -- have helped decrease car bombings, but the return of the tactic meant insurgents "are under pressure, that's why you are seeing them do stuff like this."

Meanwhile, the United Nations plans to print 5 million copies of the draft constitution that is to be put before the voters on October 15.

The minority Sunni Arabs dislike some aspects of the document, which has support from Shiite Arabs and Kurds in the government. It was uncertain how amendments to the draft would play with Sunni political leaders.

A number of changes have been made. One article specifies that Iraq is a multi-ethnic, multi-religion and multi-denomination country, is part of the Islamic world and is a founder and active member of the Arab League, to whose charter it is committed.

Nicholas Haysom, head of the U.N. office of constitutional support, told CNN that the United Nations had been presented with a draft of the constitution and a letter stating that it was the final draft.

The United Nations has asked that the amendments be read to the transitional national assembly. Once that reading is done, the printing process will begin. -- CNN News

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