Baghdad: In the deadliest day since the December 15 elections, at least 92 people were killed in Iraq and scores were wounded in separate suicide-bomb attacks, authorities said on Thursday.
In Ramadi, 50 people were killed and dozens were wounded when a bomber detonated near an Iraqi police recruitment and screening drive, according to a US Marine news release.
About 1,000 people were waiting in line to apply for positions on the new Iraqi police force being reconstituted, officials said.
Ramadi is the capital of restive Anbar province, where US and Iraqi military forces conducted several operations just before the elections, aimed at rooting out a strong insurgency there.
The blast in Karbala, a Shiite holy city, killed 42 people and also wounded dozens more. It occurred Thursday morning in a pedestrian mall that runs between the Imam Hussien and Imam Abbas holy shrines, police spokesman Rahman Mishawi said.
The area has been closed off and police are investigating, Mishawi said.
Karbala, located about 80 kilometers south of Baghdad, has been relatively free of violence for the past year.
Meanwhile in central Baquba, four police officers were killed and another four were wounded. when insurgents ambushed a police patrol using small arms fire, authorities said.
The attacks mark a second day of widespread violence in Iraq.
The most deadly incident on Wednesday was in Muqdadiya, about 100 kilometers north of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber killed 36 people and wounded 40 others at funeral procession, officials said.
Those attending the funeral were on foot when the bomber mixed in among them.
The funeral was for Mohammed al-Bakka, nephew of Ahmed al-Bakka, Ahmed al-Bakk, ahead of Muqdadiya's Dawa party and director of the town.
Ahmed al-Bakka survived an assassination attempt on Tuesday, but a bodyguard and his nephew were killed.
Dawa is the party Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
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Earlier on Wednesday, five people were killed and 15 wounded in a car bomb attack on an Iraqi police patrol in northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya. The casualties included police officers and civilians.
A short time later, Iraq police commandos battled insurgents for about 30 minutes in western Baghdad's Gazaliya neighborhood.
The firefight left one commando dead and 17 other people wounded, including 16 commandos.
Also on Wednesday, three people died and 11 more were wounded when a parked car bomb remotely detonated in an attack on an Iraqi police commando patrol in southern Baghdad's al-Dora neighborhood, Baghdad police said.
An Iraqi police commando was among the dead, and six commandos were wounded in the attack, the official said.
Meanwhile, attackers used rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns on Wednesday to destroy 20 fuel tankers in two attacks on a convoy traveling from a refinery in Baiji to Baghdad, an official with the Salah al-Din Joint Coordination Center told CNN.
The first attack took place in Tikrit, where gunmen hit a tanker with an RPG and killed the driver. An hour later, gunmen attacked the same convoy in Mashahda, about 90 kilometers north of Baghdad, destroying 19 more tankers, the officials said.
The fate of those 19 drivers was unknown, the official added.
Six killed in in Bayji air strikes
Air strikes Monday in Bayji north of Baghdad killed six members of a single family, Wamir abd el-Wahab, according to a spokesman for the Salah ad-Din provincial governor's office.
El-Wahab said three other family members were seriously wounded in the attack and the father and a daughter survived relatively unharmed.
The house, the spokesman said on Tuesday, was flattened. "Why are they hitting civilians?" el-Wahab asked.
A spokesman for the US military said air operations had taken place in the area overnight but had no further details. He said the incident was under investigation.
In a statement, the military said it conducted 58 air missions over Iraq on Monday, including one strike by US Navy F-14s "in the vicinity of Bayji."
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"The F-14s strafed the target with 100 cannon rounds and expended one precision-guided munition with successful effects against insurgents placing an improvised explosive device," the statement said, but it wasn't clear whether that was the attack in question.
None of the other missions in the statement were in the Bayji area.
In a separate statement covering only the Bayji incident, the military said an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft spotted three men "suspected of emplacing an improvised explosive device" late on Monday, and "close air support" was called in.
"The individuals left the road site and were followed from the air to a nearby building," the second statement said. "Coalition forces employed precision guided munitions on the structure.
Local Iraqi police were the first authorities at the scene to conduct post-event response."
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