Suicide bombers kill 85 in two Iraqi cities
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-05 20:04

WORST ATTACK SINCE JULY

The Kerbala bombing was the bloodiest single attack in Iraq since July 18, when a fuel truck bomb killed 98 people in the town of Musayyib, south of Baghdad, although in November two suicide bombers killed 77 people in two Shi'ite mosques in the town of Khanakin in northern Iraq.

After a lull in violence around the December 15 election, insurgent attacks have spiked up in recent weeks, exploding into carnage on Wednesday.

A suicide bomber killed 36 and wounded 40 at a Shi'ite funeral in the town of Miqdadiya, northeast of the capital, and two car bombs in Baghdad killed 13 and wounded 27.

On a road north of Baghdad, guerrillas with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns ambushed a convoy of 60 fuel tankers.

The widespread nature of the attacks suggested a level of coordination that may have been a response by Sunni Arab insurgents to the largely peaceful parliamentary election.

Mistrust between Iraq's majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arab communities has been heightened by the results of last month's elections, which some Sunni and secular leaders say were rigged to favor the Shi'ites.

The Iraqi electoral commission has called in a panel of four international monitors to investigate those accusations.

After a series of bilateral meetings in Kurdistan, political leaders have agreed to meet in Baghdad soon to push their plan for a national unity government able to stem the bloodshed that has become part of daily life for millions of Iraqis since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, Gideon Long, Ahmed Rasheed, Omar al-Ibadi and Ross Colvin in Baghdad)