surge update: Wave of Bombings Kills Dozens in Iraq

Wave of Bombings Kills Dozens in Iraq
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
BAGHDAD — A series of bombings on Friday struck mosques, a market and a shop in Baghdad, as well as the homes of a prosecutor and police officers in western Iraq on Friday, killing dozens, only five days after a joint Iraqi-American raid killed the country’s top two Al Qaeda leaders.

Iraq’s leaders had hailed the killings early Sunday as a devastating blow to the group but warned that retaliation was almost certain to come, though it was not clear that Al Qaeda in Iraq, also known as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was behind the last jolt of violence.

According to preliminary accounts by the Ministry of the Interior, 12 bombs — including car bombs and improvised explosive devices, but not suicide bombers, an Al Qaeda hallmark — killed at least 39 people and wounded nearly 100. Some officials warned that the toll was much higher.

The deadliest attacks struck near three mosques in Sadr City, the Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, just as worshippers departed Friday afternoon prayers.

The attacks came a day after senior Iraqi officials said that the previously undisclosed arrest of a senior Al Qaeda leader in Baghdad had provided a breakthrough that has since allowed Iraqi and American security forces to kill or arrests dozens of the group’s leaders and fighters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/world/middleeast/24iraq.html?ref=global-home