Car bombs kill 33 in Baghdad

IRAQ: Insurgents detonated more car bombs in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 33 people and shattering a short-lived lull in the sectarian violence blighting life in the Iraqi capital.

One blast alone killed 29 people and wounded 63 as shrapnel scythed through a commercial street in the Bayaa neighbourhood, a mainly Shiite area lying on one of the city's many dangerous sectarian faultlines.

At the same time, farther north in the Sunni city of Samarra, militants assaulted police station with a car bomb and automatic fire, killing 12 officers and triggering a bloody street battle with US forces. Both attacks bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgent factions, in particular of Al-Qaeda's Iraqi offshoot which has reacted to a US-Iraq security crackdown by unleashing a spate of deadly suicide bombings.

A second car bomb exploded near another bus stop a short distance from the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works, killing at least four people, according to security, defence and ministry sources.

Baghdad, Monday, AFP