Violence Rages in Iraq as Sunni Bloc Leaves Cabinet
By JON ELSEN and STEPHEN FARRELLPublished: August 1, 2007

Three bomb attacks in Baghdad today killed more than 65 people, as sectarian and militant violence continued to rage in Iraq.
An Iraqi man wept for his brother, who was killed in the bombing in Karada. The Shiite-led government that is trying to cope with the violence, meanwhile, suffered a political setback today, when the largest Sunni Arab political bloc in the parliament followed through on a threat to walk out of the coalition cabinet that is trying to unify the country.
One of the bombs detonated in Baghdad today was in a car outside a popular ice cream shop in the central district of Karrada. The explosion killed at least 15 people and injured more than 35. Another attack in the neighborhood last week killed 60.
Aqeel Jassim, 18, a worker in the shop, said he was preparing ice cream ingredients when he heard a loud noise, and then saw flying steel and glass destroy the shop. “For minutes I was dizzy and my feet barely held me, then I saw my co-workers swimming in their blood and the whole place turned upside down,” he said.
“I think the explosion target was the shop customers who buy ice cream to cool themselves, because of this hot weather and because this neighborhood is safe to some extent, and, maybe, it is a Shiite neighborhood.”
That bomb went off in the morning. Several hours later, just before 2 p.m., a fuel tanker truck packed with explosives rammed a line of waiting cars at a filling station in Mansour. The resulting explosion sent a sheet of flames and black smoke 50 feet in the air, and could be heard miles away. At least 50 people were killed and 60 more were wounded in the attack, news agencies reported.
Sabah Ahmed Salim al-Shammari, 34, a police officer in Yarmuk, said he had put his jerry can in line at the gas station with about 60 others. “After several steps, I found myself flying in the air and falling down on my face, and at the same time I saw flames all over my body,” Mr. Shammari said. “My hands were severely burned and my face was slightly burned, and shrapnel injured both my legs.”
He said he was taken to the hospital, then transferred to another hospital that specializes in treating burn victims.
In the southern Baghdad district of Doura, a parked-car bomb killed three people and wounded five, Reuters reported, citing the police.
On Tuesday in Salahaddin Province, 18 men from Balad were abducted by gunmen, who had established fake checkpoints, the police said today. Those abducted were in three civilian cars coming from Baghdad; they were stopped by gunmen and forced out of their cars.
The area has been the site of many sectarian kidnappings and killings recently.
The Sunni Accordance Front, which has 44 of the parliament’s 275 seats, said it was withdrawing its five ministers from the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki because the prime minister has refused to respond to a list of demands, including a greater say in security policy.
The immediate impact of the move was blunted by its coming on the first day of the government’s widely criticized summer recess, when political activity slows down considerably. It also followed reports of increasing tensions within Mr. Maliki’s own party. The parliament is scheduled to resume its work on Sept. 4.
On Sept. 15, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, are due to submit a report on the benchmarks set by Congress to measure Iraq’s political progress.
In Baghdad, American military and political officials reacted guardedly to the Sunni bloc’s pullout.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, an American military spokesman, said United States forces would continue to try to create a safer environment for Iraqi politicians to do their work.
“We continue to keep our focus on the security side, with the full intent that progress there can increase the level of stability and could increase therefore some of the prospects for progress on the political side,” he said. “Would we like to see progress go faster? Sure, we would.”
Philip Reeker, a spokesman for the United States Embassy in Baghdad, said the recent increase in American troop strength, known as the surge, “has done what we wanted it to do in terms of bringing down levels of violence in Baghdad and Anbar, stabilizing populations and protecting populations — that has gone very well.” Mr. Reeker added, “The hardest part is taking advantage of these security gains to move the political process forward, both at the national and the local levels.”
He expressed hope that Iraqi leaders would work to resolve their disputes over the Iraqi parliament’s month-long August vacation.
Mr. Reeker said that Iraq’s internal divisions have been “deepened and sharpened,” not only by the violence of recent years, but by the preceding 35 years of Baathist oppression and terror.
“For them, these are existential issues,” he said. “These are things that Iraqi political leaders need to grapple with — they need to find mechanisms through which they can work together to compromise, to find accommodation, mechanisms of engagement.
“Is it frustrating? Absolutely. As Ambassador Crocker said, ‘It’s frustrating for us, it’s frustrating for them and it’s frustrating for the Iraqi people.’ ”
Employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Baghdad.