Suicide bombers strike Shiite city; bombs rock Iraq capital

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Thursday in a crowded outdoor market in a Shiite city south of Baghdad, killing 45 people and wounding 150, police said, the latest in a series of insurgent attacks against the majority sect during the Islamic holy month of Muharram.\nThe attackers strolled into the Maktabat outdoor market in the center of Hillah at about 6 p.m. Police said they thought one of the men appeared suspicious and stopped him.\nThe bomber detonated his explosives, then the second attacker, who was walking behind the first, set off his, police added.\nThe attack killed 45 people and wounded 150, said Capt. Muthanna Khaled, a police spokesman in the southern province of Babil.\nA Foreign Ministry official said the government has invited neighboring countries, including U.S. rivals Iran and Syria, to a meeting on security next month in Baghdad. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to disclose the information, did not give a specific date but said it was planned for March and would be the 10th held by Iraq's neighbors, but the first in the Iraqi capital. The last such meeting was held in July in Iran.\nThe government, meanwhile, said it would consider any attack against U.S. forces in this country as an assault against Iraq, but also wants good relations with its big eastern neighbor, Iran, underscoring the delicate balance it faces in keeping the rivalry between the two countries from spilling over its borders.\nSpokesman Ali al-Dabbagh's comments came amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran, following the arrest of five Iranians in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil and the Jan. 20 attack to the south in Karbala in which four U.S. soldiers were kidnapped and slain. A fifth was killed in the raid.\nUndersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said there was a "political and moral difference" between what the United States and the Iranians are doing in Iraq, reiterating allegations that Tehran has been supporting Shiite militias that have been blamed for much of the recent sectarian violence in Iraq.\n"There's been increased evidence over that time that Iran has given this kind of assistance to the Shia insurgency groups in southern Iraq. They've attacked British soldiers near Basra, and they've now begun to mount those operations throughout the country, at least in the Baghdad region as well," he said in an interview with NPR.\nOffering the first indication of the war's toll on regular Iraqis this year, a Health Ministry official said 1,990 civilians had been killed in violence in January, a more than threefold increase from the 548 civilians the ministry reported killed in the same month last year. Counts kept by other groups, including the U.N., have listed far higher numbers.\nThe official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to release the data, said 1,936 civilians also had been wounded, according to the figures, which were compiled from daily reports sent by morgues and hospitals nationwide.\nFigures provided by the Defense and Interior ministries also showed that 100 Iraqi security forces were killed in January, while 593 insurgents were killed and 1,926 detained.