At least 56 killed in Iraq violence (Roundup)

Jun 30, 2007, 13:39 GMT

Baghdad - At least 56 Iraqis have been killed in a wave of intense violence in Baghdad and its surrounding areas since the early hours of Saturday, reports said.

In the Baghdad Shiite suburb of Sadr City, the US military said it had killed 26 suspected insurgents in two pre-dawn raids.

Inhabitants of the affected quarters also spoke of several civilian casualties.

At least 17 others who had 'close ties to the Iranian terrorist network and are responsible for facilitating the flow of lethal aid into Iraq' were arrested, the US military command said in the Iraqi capital Saturday.

Sadr City is a hotbed of militias and supporters of Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr.

Meanwhile, a suicide attacker killed 20 Iraqis and wounded 22 when he detonated his explosives-belt near a volunteer centre for the local police department in Muqdadiyah city, the authorities told the Independent News Agency.

According to a police source, the attack happened at noon in Diyala province's al-Muqdadiyah city, 110 kilometres north-east of Baghdad. The bomber was said to be wearing a police uniform.

Overnight accounts of deadly violence also circulated on Saturday after the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political faction in Premier Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet, published a statement holding 'militias with the aid of Iraqi police forces' responsible for deadly violence in a Sunni quarter of southern Baghdad.

According to the internet statement, at least 10 people were killed, seven kidnapped and numerous houses were torched in an attack on al-Dawra neighbourhood that lasted until the early hours of Saturday.

The party claimed that the US-led coalition forces arrived on the scene but 'did not take any measures against these militias.'

The statement said that 'seven corpses were found burned, and people failed to identify them.'

The party also claimed that the incident came as part of a series of attempts to drive out people from certain neighbourhoods 'and change the demography of Baghdad.'

There was no immediate response from the US military. The Iraqi authorities did not confirm the reported incident.

In another development, the US military also said Saturday that two US soldiers have been charged with the 'premeditated murder' of three Iraqi nationals in three separate incidents.

The unit the soldiers belong to is currently attached to the multi-national division centre in Iraq. The alleged offences occurred between April 2006 and June 2007 in Iskandariya, 40 kilometres south of Baghdad.

In addition to murder, the soldiers are charged with 'wrongfully placing weapons with the remains of deceased Iraqis.'

The accused soldiers are currently in pre-trial confinement in neighbouring Kuwait, pending investigation by the US Army Criminal Investigation Division.

Separately, the US military dismissed media reports of a mass beheading of 20 men in a village near Suliman Bek district as 'false.'

Reports last Thursday said that around 20 decapitated bodies of civilians had been found along the Tigris riverside in southern Baghdad.

Iraqi police had reportedly gone to the district in response to a tip-off and discovered the 20 decapitated bodies and their heads.