Iraqi Police Say 3 Car Bombs Kill 25

BAGHDAD – Three car bombs struck a predominantly Shiite town north of Baghdad, killing 25 people and wounding dozens, police said.

The blasts occurred in Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, in volatile Diyala province, where fighting has been raging among Sunni insurgents, Shiite militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi troops.

A U.S. commander said meanwhile that revenge-seeking police apparently were behind retribution killings in northwestern Iraq, but he blamed al-Qaida for starting the carnage with a bombing in its bid to foil a security sweep in Baghdad by stoking sectarian violence elsewhere.

Gen. David Petraeus also said the surge in attacks in Tal Afar and other cities was posing a challenge to bringing long-term stability to Iraq, but he expressed confidence in the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown on violence, now in its seventh week.

He said al-Qaida fighters had failed to incite sectarian violence despite increased attacks in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, Anbar to the west, and the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.

"They did succeed in Tal Afar in killing a number of innocent civilians in a predominantly Shia marketplace that touched off … we’re still trying to get the exact details of what happened but it appears that there clearly were some kind of retribution killings by police," Petraeus told The Associated Press and another news agency in a brief interview.

His comments were the first military confirmation that Shiite-dominated police forces were among the militants who went on a shooting rampage against Sunnis Wednesday in the religiously mixed Turkomen city, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. Iraqi officials said as many as 70 men were killed execution-style.

Representatives from the government’s security ministries had traveled to the city to investigate the events, Petraeus said, calling it "a horrific situation and a real tragedy for a community that has generally stayed together pretty much."

The shooting spree occurred a day after twin truck bombings killed 80 people and wounded 185. Between 7,000 and 10,000 pounds of explosives were used in the deadliest blast on Tuesday, making it one of the largest since the war started four years ago, a senior U.S. military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the findings have not been officially released.

Petraeus, who made his remarks after attending a graduation ceremony for Iraqi special operations forces with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on the western outskirts of Baghdad, said al-Qaida was trying to provoke a resurgence of violence by Shiite militiamen, who have largely laid low since the Baghdad operation began Feb. 14.

Still, the security plan remained "generally on track," he said, citing a drop in the number of bullet-riddled bodies found in the capital and the recent capture of senior officials allegedly connected to the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

But he cautioned that it was still early in the plan, saying fewer than 40 percent of the extra U.S. troops being sent to participate had arrived. President Bush has ordered more than 30,000 reinforcements to help in what many see as a last-ditch effort to end the violence.

"Certainly we’re seeing some of the response by extremists on either side now as al-Qaida has continued to try to ignite sectarian violence," Petraeus said, adding that many recent bombing attempts had been foiled by checkpoints and the discovery by U.S. forces of car bomb factories, including one that was responsible for killing more than 600 Iraqis in the last two months.

Petraeus also said members of the U.S. military had held talks on bringing some insurgents not linked to al-Qaida into the political process, although he said he had not personally participated in the discussions.

Former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad acknowledged holding such talks before leaving his post earlier this week, saying American officials were trying to persuade "reconcilable insurgents" to join forces against the terror network.

"The coalition has obviously engaged in the form of both diplomats in the form of the Iraqi government and in the form of some multinational force leaders," Petraeus said. "It’s been … in most cases a very sort of preliminary and exploratory effort."