IRAQ: A suicide car bomber killed 13 people outside a Shia mosque north- east of Baghdad yesterday, and gunmen shot dead nine people in a bakery in the capital in the latest sectarian attacks following the January 30th election.
The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, on an unannounced visit to Iraq, warned it would take time for Iraqi security forces to crush the country's bloody insurgency.
Iraq's 60 per cent Shia majority, oppressed for decades under Saddam Hussein, is expected to dominate Iraqi politics following last month's historic polls. Insurgents, most of whom are Sunni Muslim, have mounted repeated attacks on Shias, sparking fears the country could slide towards civil war.
Mr Rumsfeld, the highest-ranking American to visit since the election, landed before dawn in Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad.
He told US soldiers the poll had been a good day for Iraq "but there are still challenges ahead".
Police said 13 people were killed and 40 wounded in Balad Ruz when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a mosque. Four of the dead were soldiers and at least three wounded were children.
The worshippers had been leaving a Shia ceremony for Ashura, one of the most holy events in the Shia calendar. Iraq plans to seal its borders next week to prevent pilgrims from flooding the country for the ceremony's climax.
Last year suicide bombers blew themselves up among crowds of Ashura pilgrims in Baghdad and Kerbala, killing 171.
In Baghdad, gunmen burst into a Shia bakery yesterday, opening fire on workers and killing at least nine. The white walls, plastered with posters of Shia clerics, were left smeared with blood.
Millions of Iraqis defied suicide bombs and mortar attacks to vote at the end of last month, but partial results show a low turnout in Sunni areas, because of security fears and calls for a boycott.
A religious coalition blessed by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shia cleric, has a commanding lead, with about half the 4.6 million votes counted so far. A coalition of Kurdish parties is in second place and a bloc led by the interim Prime Minister, Mr Iyad Allawi, is third.
Attacks slowed briefly after the ballot, but suicide bombings this week in Baghdad, Baquba and Mosul have killed almost 50 police, soldiers and Iraqis hoping to join the security forces. The bodies of four men believed to be police were found in Haswa yesterday, while a policeman was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baquba.