Baghdad - US forces fired an artillery barrage in southern Baghdad on Sunday morning, rocking the capital with loud explosions. The death toll from a suicide car bomb attack in the Shi'a holy city of Karbala rose to 68 as residents dug through the debris of heavily damaged shops.
The blasts in Baghdad came a day after the US military announced the deaths of nine American troops, including four killed in separate roadside bombings south of Baghdad and five in fighting in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of the capital.
American troops also detained 72 suspected insurgents and seized nitric acid and other bomb-making materials during raids on Sunday targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of the capital, and Salahuddin province, a volatile Sunni area northwest of the capital, the US military said.
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The size and the pattern of the explosions, which began after 9am and lasted for at least 15 minutes, suggested they were directed at Sunni militant neighbourhoods along the city's southern rim. Such blasts have been heard in the evenings but are rare at that time of day.
In a brief statement to The Associated Press, the US military said it fired the artillery from a forward operating base near Iraq's Rasheed military base southeast of Baghdad, but provided no other details.
Iraqis in the southern region of the city said American and Iraqi forces had stepped up their operations in the Dora area of southern Baghdad starting on Saturday night.
Authorities in northern Iraq imposed an indefinite curfew in the Sunni stronghold of Samarra after leaflets signed by rival insurgent groups threatened police officers if they did not quit their jobs and promised to target any oil company that wants to explore in the area.
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