Violence leaves at least 50 people dead

Six U.S. soldiers and airmen were reported dead, the military said.
WASHINGTON POST
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At least 50 people were killed in Iraq on Sunday in a catalog of violence that included a mortar attack, military firefights, roadside bombs and other explosions.
In addition, the U.S. military reported the deaths of six soldiers and airmen Sunday, including two who were killed when their helicopter apparently was shot down southwest of Baghdad. The U.S. military said in a statement that it had recovered the remains of two pilots of a U.S. AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter that went down during a combat air patrol southwest of Baghdad at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
Also, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on an unannounced visit to the Iraqi capital amid a monthslong political crisis, publicly questioned the leadership of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the strongest indication yet that the United States wants him out of contention as head of Iraq's first permanent government.
Arriving in the midst of a torrential rainstorm, Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw conducted a whirlwind series of private meetings with leaders of Iraq's feuding political blocs.
"I don't know who the prime minister is going to be, and it's not our role to try and determine who the prime minister is going to be," said Rice, in response to a reporter's question. "I do know that in the time since his nomination on Feb. 11 he's not been able to [form a government]."
No leader yet
Since the election of a new parliament Dec. 15, the nation's political leadership has been paralyzed over the choice of a new prime minister, the nation's top officer. Although a Shiite coalition of seven smaller parties holds 130 of 275 seats, it must win the support of some Sunni Arab or Kurdish legislators to form a cabinet.
Rice urged Iraqis on Sunday to choose a leader quickly so that the nation's government could throw its weight into the fight against a Sunni-led insurgency and sectarian violence that claims an average of 90 casualties every day, most of them civilians.
In the single deadliest attack Sunday, at least nine people, including three women and two children, were killed in a mortar barrage on the south Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, a predominantly Sunni Arab area, according to Baghdad police Col. Abdullah Nuaimi. He said that 15 people were wounded in the attack.
The bodies of 10 men, all blindfolded and hands bound, were found in three areas of west Baghdad, Nuaimi said. All the men had been shot.
About 40 miles north of Baghdad, in the village of Gubba, insurgents blew up the local Shiite mosque, leaving it in ruins and killing a guard who was posted inside, Baqubah police Col. Adnan Lafta said.
The killings and attacks, which seemed to target specific religious communities, are the sort that military and political analysts say are being used by sectarian and insurgent groups to foment strife between Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs and majority Shiite Muslims and push the country toward civil war.
U.S. soldiers killed
In other statements Sunday, the military said two U.S. soldiers on foot patrol were killed by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad on Saturday. A Marine died from wounds sustained during hostile action Friday in Anbar province, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents west of the capital. And a soldier died of injuries received March 30 in a nonbattle-related operation in Kirkuk.
No other details were available.
In other areas of the country, five people, including three children, were killed when a firefight erupted in Ramadi, an insurgent hotbed 55 miles west of Baghdad, after a U.S. military humvee was struck by a roadside bomb, a local hospital official and witness said.
Witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and an inspection of the scene indicated that there were U.S. casualties.
A doctor at Ramadi General Hospital, Thamir Aisawi, said that fighting erupted after the humvee was hit by a roadside bomb while traveling through the center of town, and the soldiers inside scrambled out to defend themselves. As they huddled near the vehicle, insurgents attacked the group, and the soldiers returned fire in what witnesses described as a random manner, leading to the civilian casualties. The soldiers were subsequently evacuated from the scene.
Omar Feaih al-Rawi, 30, who owns a store near the spot where the explosion occurred, said a roadside bomb was "planted by Al-Qaida elements this morning and was waiting for an American convoy to pass. They detonated it on an American patrol, which led to completely destroying a humvee, killing and injuring those who were on it."
A U.S. military spokesman said he had no information about the attack.
Explosion kills family
Nuaimi, the Baghdad police official, said that a mother and five of her children were killed in a large explosion inside their house southeast of Baghdad. The father was not at home at the time of the blast, he said.
Police were investigating whether the family, who are Shiite Muslims, were the target of the blast, or whether the father may have been storing an explosive device in his home, Nuaimi said.
Late Saturday, in southern Iraq, British and Iraqi soldiers detained 14 members of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Four were later released. "They were brought in on suspicion of serious crimes and terrorism in and around Basra city," said Maj. Sebastian Muntz, a spokesman for the British military. "Ammunition and weapons were found there, which gave us a good indication that these are the correct people being detained."
Previous detentions of al-Sadr loyalists, whom the British consider among the biggest threats to stability in the south, have sparked protests and other unrest. In response to Saturday's detentions, the Mahdi Army issued threats against British and Iraqi forces.