Iraqis cheer U.S. pullback, but violence mars big day

BAGHDAD — Not a single American soldier was in sight. Gone, too, were the American helicopters whose buzz has for years defined Baghdad's background track.

Left alone to protect the capital Tuesday were thousands of Iraqi troops and police manning checkpoints, with army tanks deployed at potential trouble spots and convoys of pickup trucks with machine guns roaming the streets.

But it was elsewhere, 180 miles to the north, that militants delivered their first deadly challenge to Iraq's security forces on a highly symbolic day after the formal withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from cities at midnight.

A car bombing devastated a food market in the city of Kirkuk, killing at least 33 people and wounding 90. The early evening attack, which bore the hallmarks of Sunni extremist groups like al-Qaida in Iraq, was the second in the Kirkuk area since a truck bombing killed 82 people on June 20.

The latest blast was a deadly example of the violence many Iraqis fear will increase with the departure of U.S. troops from urban areas, despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's confidence in Iraq's nascent security forces.

The bombing came hours after the U.S. military announced that four American soldiers were killed in combat Monday. It was the deadliest attack on U.S. forces since May 21, when three soldiers were killed and nine wounded in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

"It reminds me that there are still dangers out there," Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. soldier in Iraq, said of the American deaths. "There are still people out there who do not want the government of Iraq to succeed."

The violence marred what otherwise was a festive occasion as Iraqis commemorated the newly declared National Sovereignty Day with military parades and marching bands in the capital.

Colorful paper balls and Iraqi flags were hoisted on blast walls at checkpoints as patriotic songs blared from loudspeakers on sidewalks.

Plastic flowers and streamers decorated police and army vehicles. One car had a red heart with the English word "Love" in the middle, as if for Valentine's Day.

Some policemen danced atop their vehicles as they moved in convoys across the capital. Traffic was light in Baghdad, but particularly thorough searches at some checkpoints meant long lines of waiting cars in parts of the city.

No matter.