Bomb and Mortar Attacks in Iraq Kill 38

[brettdale]

Bomb and Mortar Attacks in Iraq Kill 38

http://www.southernillinoisan.com/articles/2007/02/05/ap/headlines/d8n3o0780.txt


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Violence raked Baghdad Monday as an Iraqi general took charge of the security operation in the capital and Iraqi police and soldiers manned new roadblocks _ initial steps indicating the start of the long-anticipated joint operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed.

At least 38 people died in bomb and mortar attacks across the city Monday, 15 of them as they waited to buy gasoline when two car bombs blew up in quick succession in south Baghdad. Seven people died after nightfall when four mortar shells rained down on a Shiite neighborhood in south Baghdad.

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The violence was a sign of the difficulty facing as many as 90,000 American and Iraqi troops and police waiting to be called upon for a third attempt to calm the capital in nine months. The command center, staffed by Iraqis and Americans, opened Monday inside the U.S.-controlled Green Zone next to the prime minister's office.

"It's going to be much more than this city has ever seen and it's going to be a rolling surge," Col. Douglass Heckman, the senior adviser to the 9th Iraqi Army Division, said Sunday.