Bombings in Basra, Baghdad
US Airstrike Kills 13 at Baqubah

A suicide bomber targeted pensioners standing in line in Basra, killing 1 and wounding 5.

In Baghdad, a bomber killed 7 and wounded 18 in a market.

Al-Zaman/ DPA say that police found 16 corpses in various parts of Iraq.

Al-Zaman reports that [Ar.] dozens of physicians went on strike in Baghdad on Tuesday to protest the assassination of a specialist.


The US killed 15 persons it says were insurgents in an air strike near Baqubah. Locals denied that the deceased, who include an 12-year-old boy, were involved in violence. Arab news channels tended to see that strike as a tragic error or as a "massacre."

British Lieutenant General Nick Houghton came out Tuesday with a gloomy portrait of sectarian violence in the southern port city of Basra:

' "There is a worrying amount of violence and murder carried out between rival Shia factions," he said. "The security situation in Basra has no doubt got worse of late due to the protracted period of talks to form the government." That, he said, allowed "a period of time in which politics that should have been conducted more appropriately, actually were conducted through violent means on the streets". Gen Houghton continued: "There has been inter-faction rivalry, much of it then reflecting in non-judicial murder between rival Shia factions struggling for political and economic power." '

Supreme Jurisprudent of Iran Ali Khamenei, pressed again Tuesday for withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq.