13 killed in Iraq attacks as Ramadan begins

BAGHDAD: Thirteen people were killed in a spate of rebel attacks in Iraq, including a pair of car bombs in Baghdad on Sunday, a security source said, in a bloody start to the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.            

Three civilian drivers were killed when insurgents launched a combined attack of small-arms fire and a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army convoy near Abu Ghraib on the western outskirts of Baghdad, a security source said.        

In another incident, a civilian was killed and 14 people wounded, including four policemen, when a car bomb blew up in central Baghdad's Karrada district, targeting a police patrol.        

One police vehicle was destroyed in the blast, which took place just across the street from a church.        

In the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah, a car bomb targeting an army patrol killed two soldiers and wounded two other people, including a soldier.          

A suicide car bomber in the far northern city of Tall Afar rammed an Iraqi army observation post in the center of town and detonated his vehicle, killing two soldiers and wounding two.       

The well fortified post withstood the attack, minimizing casualties, according to police. A week ago, a suicide bomber killed over 20 people in the same town.            

In the mixed Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, a scene of relentless violence, five people were killed in a series of attacks, including a police officer shot near his home at the provincial capital in Baquba.   

In Tikrit, Colonel Samuel Jihan of the police serious crimes investigation bureau was shot dead when gunmen ambushed him Saturday night when he went to visit with friends.             

In recent years Iraq has seen a spike in violence during Ramadan. And on Saturday, 31 people, mostly women and children, were killed in a bomb blast in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, as Sunnis began the fasting month of Ramadan.

Shiites will begin observing the holy month from Monday. Two leading US newspapers said Sunday that a new classified US intelligence report has concluded that the war in Iraq has helped spawn a new wave of Islamic radicalism and made the overall terrorist threat worse.       

The findings contained in the National Intelligence Estimate appear to be in stark contradiction with recent claims by US President George W. Bush and other top administration officials that victory in Iraq is the key to winning the global war on terror.