Twin Baghdad bombings kill at least 11 Iraqi citizens

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Two bombings 20 minutes apart killed at least 11 Iraqis on Thursday, and the U.S. military announced five more American battle deaths. A U.S. rocket attack on the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City killed a woman and enraged Shiites across Iraq.\nNear Sadr City, a shepherd made a grisly discovery: 16 blindfolded and bound men who had been shot repeatedly and buried in an open area. The men, all wearing civilian clothes but with no identity documents, were the latest victims in a string of presumed sectarian attacks.\nThe bloodshed, coupled with attacks on an oil processing plant in the northern city of Kirkuk, underscored the difficulties faced by the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi authorities in curbing Iraq's raging violence.\nA car bomb exploded at about 5 p.m. outside a gasoline station in the eastern New Baghdad neighborhood, killing two people and wounding 13, police said. U.S. troops cordoned off the scene as firefighters battled giant plumes of bright orange flames.\nAbout 20 minutes later, a suicide attacker -- apparently trying to target a Shiite mosque -- exploded his bomb-packed car in a nearby open-air market in New Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 57, police said.\nCapt. Mohammed Jassim said barricades prevented the attacker, who was driving a black Opel sedan, from reaching the al-Mohsen mosque where worshippers were gathering for sunset prayers.\n"As he couldn't get through, he turned his car and slammed it into nearby shops and stalls," Jassim said.\nThe bombings followed a morning barrage of rockets fired by a U.S. helicopter into the nearby eastern Baghdad area of Sadr City, power-base of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.\nThe attack, which the U.S. military said came in response to gunfire from men in the neighborhood, was condemned by followers of al-Sadr from Baghdad to the southern city of Basra.\nMilitary spokeswoman Sgt. Stacy Simon said American forces were in Sadr City at about 1 a.m. pursuing a "known terrorist associated with Ansar al-Sunnah," a Sunni militant group that has claimed responsibility for many suicide attacks and beheadings. At least two people were detained, but their identities were not known.\n"As troops were leaving the area in a U.S. military helicopter, men on a nearby rooftop began firing at the aircraft," Simon said. "The helicopter returned fire with guns and rockets."\nA 20-year-old woman was killed when a rocket crashed into her home, said her father, who was wounded along with a woman and a 2-year-old child.\nAn Al-Sadr supporter, Shiite lawmaker Falah Hassan Shanshal, accused the U.S. of trying to "draw the Sadr movement into a new fight to affect our participation in the political process."\n"The occupation is trying to shake the United Iraqi Alliance after their successful election results," said lawmaker Bahaa al-din al-Araji, an al-Sadr supporter and a senior member of the Shiite bloc that did best in the Dec. 15 polls.\nSadr City was the scene of fierce clashes between Shiite militiamen and American forces in 2004 and early 2005. The U.S. has recently pointed to the neighborhood as a model of improving relations between Americans and Iraqis.\nThe five American troops all died Wednesday in separate attacks, the U.S. command said.\nA roadside bomb blast killed three U.S. soldiers south of Baghdad, while a fourth soldier died from wounds suffered in a small-arms fire attack in Baghdad, the military said. A U.S. Marine was killed during combat near the western city of Fallujah.