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Suicide bombers kill 19 in northern Iraq

REUTERS, Baghdad
Car bombers struck in Baghdad and northern Iraq yesterday, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than 40, the latest attacks in a surge of suicide bombings that have killed hundreds since late April.
Four of the attacks were in or near the northern town of Hawija, close to the strategic oil city of Kirkuk. One suicide bomber blew up his car near a US base, another beside an Iraqi army checkpoint and a third close to a market, police said.
A fourth car bomb struck a checkpoint in the town of Abasi, near
Hawija. In total, 19 people were killed and 38 wounded in the four attacks, Major-General Anwar Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi army commander in Kirkuk, told Reuters.
In Baghdad, a car bomb detonated alongside a police patrol, wounding nine people, including two policemen, police said.
Since April 28, when Iraq's new Shia led cabinet was announced, insurgents have sharply escalated attacks, killing more than 800 Iraqis and 88 US troops. May was the deadliest month for US forces since January.
The violence has worsened sectarian tensions in Iraq.
A series of assassinations of clerics, and mass killings of Iraqis whose bodies were then dumped, has led some Sunni groups to accuse a militia linked to one of Iraq's main Shia parties of involvement in the kidnap and killing of Sunni Arabs.
The militia, the Badr organisation, has denied involvement and political leaders have called on Iraqis to avoid being drawn into sectarian strife.
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In the latest killing of a cleric, Salam Abdul-Karim, a Sunni, was found dead in the mainly Shia city of Basra on Monday, relatives said. They said he had been abducted the previous day by men in Iraqi police uniforms.
Police denied any involvement in the killing. The death followed that of a Shia cleric in Basra last week.
In an effort to defuse sectarian tensions and undermine the Sunni-Arab dominated insurgency, the Shia and Kurdish blocs that emerged strongest from Iraq's Jan. 30 polls are trying to involve more
Sunni Arabs in the writing of a new constitution, the next key step in Iraq's path toward full democracy.
Sunni Arabs dominated Iraq during the rule of Saddam Hussein but few voted in the January elections due to calls from Sunni Arab parties for a boycott and fears of insurgent attacks.
There are only 17 Sunni Arab lawmakers in Iraq's 275-member parliament, and only two in the committee of 55 Iraqis that is tasked with overseeing the writing of a constitution.
The Shia chairman of the committee has said it will be expanded to include more Sunni Arabs, but the names of the new members have yet to be agreed.
Near the western city of Falluja, two US Marines have been killed by roadside bombs since Sunday, the military said.
Since the US-led invasion in 2003, at least 1,676 American military and Pentagon personnel have lost their lives in Iraq.