Iraq militants launch new attacks

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Insurgents launched fresh attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 11 Iraqis and wounding more than 40 in a second day of violence aimed at shaking the country's newly formed government.

At a meeting of Iraq's neighbors in Turkey, meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the violence was "not solely the concern of the Iraqis but ours as well."

Some of the worst attacks occurred in the capital, still reeling from Friday's onslaught in which at least 17 bombs exploded in Iraq, killing 52 people, including five U.S. soldiers.

At least five car bombings occurred in the Baghdad area Saturday, U.S. military spokesman Greg Kaufman said. He had no information on casualties.

They included a suicide attack that targeted a joint U.S. military and Iraqi police patrol in western Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounding seven, including four policemen, police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said.

Minutes later, another suicide bomber plowed into a civilian convoy near the offices of the National Dialogue Council, a coalition of 10 Sunni Arab factions that had been negotiating for a stake in Iraq's new Shiite-dominated government. The blast killed at least one council guard and injured 18 other Iraqis, said police Capt. Kadhim Abbas at al-Yarmouk Hospital.

A third suicide car bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol exploded near the Mohammad Rasoul Allah Mosque in eastern Baghdad, killing two Iraqi women and a girl, and seriously wounding four soldiers, police Lt. Col. Ahmed Abboud Effait said.

Two Iraqis -- a policeman and a former official in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party -- also died in shootings Saturday in Baghdad, police said.

U.S. officials had hoped Iraq's new government, which was approved Thursday and takes office on Tuesday, would help dent support for the militants within the Sunni Arab minority that dominated under Saddam and is believed to be driving the insurgency.

However, the lineup of Cabinet ministers named by Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari after months of political wrangling excluded Sunnis from meaningful positions and left the key defense and oil ministries in temporary hands.

Insurgents also launched six strikes in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, including one that injured an American soldier, the U.S. military said. At least three Iraqis were killed and eight wounded in the attacks, according to police 1st Lt. Mahmoud Arif Yahya.

The attacks included a suicide car bomb that exploded near a police patrol, killing a woman who was passing by and wounding four policemen, said Dr. Abdul Sattar Ramadhan al-Khalidi at Mosul's Jimhouri Hospital.

Another suicide bomber attacked a U.S. Stryker vehicle, injuring an undetermined number of civilians and slightly wounding a U.S. soldier, the U.S. military said.

Elsewhere in the city, a roadside bomb missed its police patrol target, killing two Iraqi civilians and wounding two others, and gunmen opened fire on a separate police patrol, wounding two officers, al-Khalidi said.

Two civilian bystanders were wounded when a roadside bomb aimed at a police patrol exploded south of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, army Brig. Hamid Al-Timimi said.

West of Baghdad, a young girl was killed and nine adults were wounded by mortar fire, said Dr. Uday Hussein at Fallujah General Hospital. Associated Press Television News footage showed a weeping man kissing the child's corpse at the hospital and a gaping crater left in a neighborhood street with nearby cars damaged by shrapnel.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed Friday when a Task Force Baghdad patrol struck a roadside bomb in the western part of Baghdad, the military said in a statement, raising the day's toll for U.S. forces to five dead. The military detained nine suspects in a nearby house.

The U.S. military also said Saturday that four U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded Thursday when a Task Force Freedom convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Tal Afar city, 90 miles east of the Syrian border. It did not explain the delay in announcing the casualties.

Elsewhere, four U.S. soldiers in a convoy were wounded when their Humvee rolled into a ditch late Friday night near Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

At least 1,581 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Seven foreign ministers

Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, opened a meeting Saturday of foreign ministers from Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, expressing concern about Iraq's new government and fear that Iraq's violence could spread to the region.

"Iraq cannot be a place where one entity prevails over the others, nor can it be a place divided up as desired," Erdogan said in Istanbul. "Such attempts will meet the reaction of the countries of the region and the international community."

Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people. The Kurds make up 20 percent, and the Sunni Arabs -- who largely stayed away from the elections either in boycott or for fear of attacks -- are roughly 15 percent to 20 percent.