70 Iraqis Killed in Spasm of Violence

Bombs, rockets, mortar shells and gunfire on Sunday claimed the lives of more than 70 Iraqis and injured hundreds, as the government put on displays of unity and promised to overhaul security forces.

The most deadly violence -- and Iraq’s worst sectarian provocation since last month’s bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra -- took place in Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite slum in northeastern Baghdad, where apparently coordinated attacks killed 46 people and wounded more than 200 others.

Near sunset, two car bombs -- one detonated by a suicide attacker -- ripped through two busy markets less than a mile apart. The explosions were followed by rocket and mortar attacks, as residents bundled the wounded into their cars to get them medical attention and militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr took to the streets, erecting checkpoints and firing AK-47s into the air.

Anwar Kadim, 23, a music student who lives near one market, described a chaotic scene. Body parts and glass littered the street among overturned stalls and smoking ruins.

“I saw people drowning in blood,” he said. “We don’t know the reason, who did this or why. God will take revenge.”

The carnage and its aftermath played on Iraqi TV throughout the night.

Police later found the bodies of four men in Sadr City who had been shot. Papers had been pinned to their chests, saying, “These are traitors.” Police believe the men were killed in retaliation for the attacks.

Explosions and gunfire killed 12 Iraqis elsewhere in the capital, and a dozen other bodies were discovered, some in a sewage ditch, police and hospital officials said.

The scenes played out against government officials’ efforts to show political progress and greater unity among the parties.

Inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, Defense Minister Saadoun Dulaimi and Interior Minister Bayan Jabr -- a Sunni Arab and a Shiite, respectively -- appeared side by side earlier in the day, flanked by scores of police officers and army generals, to announce the security initiative after weeks of intense sectarian violence.

Under the new plan, which Jabr said had been hashed out between the two ministers at his house last week, the military and police would put together joint teams when making arrests. Security forces also would be required to issue detainees receipts stating the units of the arresting authorities. In addition, members of U.S.-led coalition forces would sit in on investigations to “ensure [their] integrity,” Dulaimi said.

It was not clear whether there could be exceptions made to the joint-arrests rule and, if so, under what conditions.

Sunni Muslim Arabs have long complained that the Iraqi police force has been infiltrated by Shiite militiamen who are carrying out extrajudicial executions and torture. Almost daily, bodies are found somewhere in Iraq -- bound, blindfolded and shot execution-style.

“It will help us find out who arrested the people who later show up dead,” Dulaimi said of the planned changes.

Whereas the majority of police officers are Shiite, the Iraqi army predominantly consists of Kurds and Sunni Arabs.

The government dispatched soldiers to guard Sunni mosques, and police officers to protect Shiite places of worship, during the week of bitter bloodshed that followed the Feb. 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a venerated Shiite shrine.

Dulaimi said that the two ministries would seek to work “as one team and not two.” The Interior Ministry oversees the police forces; the Defense Ministry, the military forces.

In another move intended to ease tensions, interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari held a rare meeting with interim President Jalal Talabani. The two men’s longtime rivalry became apparent this month when Talabani, a Kurd, joined in opposing Jafari’s renomination as prime minister by the main Shiite bloc, which won the most seats in the parliament elected in December.

But in a nod to Shiites, the president’s office announced that the opening session of Iraq’s new parliament would be moved up to Thursday. The session had been planned for Sunday, a major Shiite holiday during which many pilgrims travel to the holy city of Karbala.

The parliamentary session will set in motion the formation of Iraq’s first full-term government since Saddam Hussein’s regime was ousted in 2003.

Jafari also struck a conciliatory note, telling reporters after the meeting that “the points of view between me and the president were very similar.” Asked about the split between the two men, the prime minister said: “As far as I am concerned, there is no crisis.”

Later in the day, Iraqi political leaders and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad held a news conference at Talabani’s house that featured leaders from various Iraqi parties. U.S. officials hope to see the formation of a government that includes Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, in an effort to prevent the sectarian conflict from escalating into civil war.

On the streets of Baghdad, however, killings continued Sunday.

The violence began at dawn when a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol in the Mustansiriya district, critically injuring five soldiers. An hour later, a mortar shell hit a house in the center of the capital, killing two people and wounding six. Other attacks followed, including a roadside bomb that exploded near an American military convoy, killing six Iraqis and injuring 13.

Around noon, gunmen shot to death two electrical engineers in central Baghdad. A few hours later, assassins targeted an Iraqi actor in the Dora neighborhood on the southern edge of the capital, and assailants killed a Ministry of Defense interpreter as he was driving on a highway near the city center.

The bodies of eight bound and blindfolded men were found in a sewage ditch in Rustamiya, southeast of Baghdad, where sectarian death squads have been leaving corpses in recent months. All had been shot in the head, execution-style. The bodies of three other men were found inside a parked car in the Baghdad industrial area of Bayaa. And another body, showing signs of torture, was found under a bridge in the center of the capital.

Then, near sunset, Sadr City was attacked.

In Al Hay market, angry young men kicked the severed head of the suicide bomber that lay in the street, the Associated Press reported. The news service also said that the U.S. Embassy had ordered government employees to stop using commercial airlines when flying in and out of the country because of a “recent security incident” at Baghdad airport. The nature of the incident was unclear.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi tribunal trying Hussein and seven members of his former government resumed its hearings in Baghdad on Sunday, taking testimony from three lesser-known defendants. The deposed president was not in the courtroom. He is expected to appear later in the week to speak in his own defense.

The eight defendants face charges in the execution of nearly 150 Shiite residents from the village of Dujayl after shots were fired on Hussein’s motorcade in 1982.

The defendants who testified Sunday -- Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid; his father, Abdullah Kadhem Ruwayyid; and Ali Dayim Ali; all members of Hussein’s Baath Party in Dujayl -- denied any role in identifying or arresting suspects in the assassination attempt.

One by one, the three men disavowed statements that they had signed in the presence of investigators about their role in the crackdown. Each claimed poor eyesight. “I might as well have been signing a blank paper,” the younger Ruwayyid said. “I didn’t have my glasses.”

Prosecutors questioned him about letters he had allegedly signed in 1982, singling out entire families for arrest.

“The state and the security services did not need the help of a small employee like me,” he said.

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Times staff writers Asmaa Waguih, Shamil Aziz and Richard Boudreaux in Baghdad contributed to this report.