A spate of bombings across Iraq and a fresh surge of fighting between Shiite militiamen and US forces killed at least 65 people Tuesday, Iraqi officials said. The first blast occurred in Baquba, 60 km northeast of Baghdad, when a car parked in front of a restaurant exploded just before noon across the street from the central courthouse and other government offices. Many of the victims were people visiting the government offices, petition writers helping people with documents in stalls outside or the occupants of cars that were caught in the explosion as they passed through the area, witnesses said. Several cars and minibuses were set ablaze, while more than 10 shops and a restaurant were heavily damaged. At least 40 people were killed and 80 wounded in the blast, according to hospital officials. Another parked car bomb exploded near a kebab restaurant at about 12:30 P.M. in an industrial area in Ramadi, killing at least 13 people, including three policemen, and wounding 20 others, police Capt. Abu Saif Al-Anbari said. Hospital officials said two children were among the dead. Several people were badly injured and the blood seeped through their bandages as they lay on stretchers or the floor in the packed emergency room at the hospital. Ahmed Al-Dulaimi, a 27-year-old mechanic was at the restaurant when the blast occurred but escaped injury because he was sitting at a back table. He said his cousin, who owned the restaurant, had been killed. He said the explosion occurred after a motorcycle parked near the restaurant, but police insisted it was a car bomb. “Pieces of flesh flew into the air and the roof fell over us. I saw the horrible sight of bodies without heads or without legs or hands,” he said. In the main northern city of Mosul, twin car bombs exploded in quick succession as a US military and Iraqi police patrol passed wounding 12 people, police said. Four policemen were among the wounded in the attack. Security officials in Baghdad, meanwhile, reported two workers killed and two policemen wounded Tuesday by a roadside bomb planted near a police station in Baghdad's central Karrada neighborhood. A later car bomb also in Karrada killed one person and wounded six others, including four policemen. Renewed fighting Tuesday between Shiite militiamen, mostly linked to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, and security forces killed six people, the American military said. US troops called in air support, the military said, adding that in the ensuing firefight three more “enemy fighters” were killed. __
