Bombs blitz Baghdad as UN warns of chaos

BAGHDAD—At least six bombs exploded around Baghdad on Wednesday as the death toll from a brutal civil conflict continued to rise steeply and a top UN official warned that Iraq is spiralling out of control. Meanwhile, the leader of a religious minority was shot dead in front of his home, security and medical sources said, and US soldiers battled to control a fire triggered by a mortar attack on an ammunition store.
The latest violence came after two days in which Baghdad police had found the corpses of 110 murder victims scattered across the capital, which is in the grip of a vicious turf war between Sunni and Shiite factions.
"Our appeal goes to everybody who can curb the violence: religious, ethnic, cultural leaders have to see that this has spiralled totally out of control," said United Nations Under Secretary General Jan Egeland in Geneva.
"Sectarian violence and military operations have now resulted in the displacement of 315,000 people in these past eight months," the top UN humanitarian official told reporters.
"One thousand people now would be displaced per day at least, and perhaps even worse is the fact that 100 people are killed every day." The victims were mainly police recruits, judges, lawyers, journalists and women targeted for "honour crimes", prompting a brain drain of professionals who are essential to rebuild the country, according to Egeland.
About 2,000 people are crossing the border to Syria every day, bringing the number of Iraqi refugees abroad to about 1.2 to 1.5 million, he said, while another 1.5 million Iraqis are displaced within their own country.
Two car bombs detonated almost simultaneously near the ministry of labour in the northeast of the city, killing two civilians and wounding 12 more.
Another booby-trapped vehicle exploded in the southeast of the city, killing two bystanders and wounding 22 people, including eight policemen.
One civilian was killed and another six injured including three policemen in explosion of a roadside bomb behind Al-Yarmuk hospital in western Baghdad.
In Dura, in southern of Baghdad, gunmen killed a family of four people at their home on Wednesday, the police said. And in the Amil neighbourhood of western of Baghdad five stonemasons were killed by an improvised bomb as they waited for work as day labourers.
A US military spokesman confirmed that an overnight blaze in a Baghdad ammunition dump, which triggered a massive series of explosions, had been caused by a mortar fired by militia fighters in a nearby Shiite suburb.
Meanwhile, gunmen assassinated Sheikh Raad Mutar Saleh, a leader of the tiny sect of Sabeans, sometimes known as Mandeans, a small pre-Muslim Gnostic group that is thought to have links to Judaism and early Christianity.
The Sabeans are monotheistic, practice baptism and are mentioned in the Muslim Koran -- along with Christians and Jews -- as a "people of the book".
Traditionally known as skilled silversmiths, Sabeans historically live in small numbers -- fewer than 20,000 -- in Iraq and Iran, although many have fled regional unrest and taken refuge in Western countries.
Muta Saleh was shot dead in Suweira, 65 kilometres (35 miles) southeast of Baghdad in the Tigris River valley, police said.
Violence also continued elsewhere in Iraq, which is still gripped by mounting insurgent and militia bloodletting more than three-and-a-half years after a US-led invasion toppled former leader Saddam Hussein.
A roadside booby-trap exploded in the southern city of Kut targeting a US patrol, but wounding three bystanders, police said.
The US military also said three marines had been killed in western Iraq on Monday, bring the death toll for the month so far to 39 and the total of GIs killed since the March 2003 invasion to 2,748. —Agencies