Dozens die in Iraq bombings

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Bombings in Baghdad on Thursday killed at least 35 people and wounded dozens, many of them children, while another 11 bodies were found throughout Iraq in the continuing string of shadowy sectarian slayings.

In the deadliest suicide attack, a suicide car bomber struck at the Interior Ministry Major Crimes unit in Baghdad's central Karradah district, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 35, police said.

It was not immediately clear how many of those killed were bystanders and how many were employees of the unit, which investigates large-scale crimes, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi said.

A second car bomb hit a market area outside a Shiite Muslim mosque in the mostly mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Shurta in southwest Baghdad. At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, police said.

Coalition forces, meanwhile, freed three Christian peace activists who had been held hostage for nearly four months. James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, of Canada, and Norman Kember, 74, of Britain, were rescued in a joint U.S.-British operation northeast of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.

The members of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams were kidnapped on Nov. 26 along with their American colleague, Tom Fox, 54, whose body was found earlier this month.

Roadside bombs targeting police patrols killed four others in Baghdad and at least one in Iskandariyah. Police said dozens were wounded.

A roadside blast in Baghdad's mostly Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Azamiyah killed two policemen and two bystanders, according to police Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali. At least seven others — two policemen and five civilians — were wounded, he said.

Another bomb wounded four civilians in the Karradah district, which is mostly Shiite but has a large Sunni minority.

The roadside bomb in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, killed one policeman and wounded two pedestrians, police said.

Two policemen were killed and two were wounded when gunmen ambushed their convoy in north Baghdad, an attack that police said was an aborted attempt to free detainees being transferred to the northern city of Mosul.

Also in Baghdad, two civilians were gunned down in drive-by shootings. Another civilian was seriously wounded by an Iraqi army patrol that was shooting in the air to clear traffic in the western neighborhood of Yarmouk, police said.