Bombs kill 50 in Iraq as violence flares

By Jamal al-Badrani

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Bombs in Baghdad and northern Iraq killed at least 50 people on Thursday, police said, underscoring doubts about local forces' ability to keep Iraqis safe after U.S. troops pulled out of city centres.

The attacks in the north, where tensions between Arabs and Kurds threaten to flare into Iraq's next conflict, and in the capital appeared to be part of an attempt by insurgents to reignite sectarian fighting following the partial U.S. pullback.

Two suicide bombings in Tal Afar, a town in volatile Nineveh province that is mainly home to minority Turkmen of the Shi'ite Muslim faith, killed 34 people and wounded 60, police said.

One suicide bomber detonated an explosives vest in the historic centre of the town, 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, followed by another suicide attack just as people responded to the first blast.

Nineveh and its main city Mosul have suffered a steady drumbeat of attacks since June 30, when U.S. troops withdrew from urban centres. It is an area where groups like al Qaeda have taken advantage of tensions between Sunni Arabs, ethnic Kurds and other minorities to sustain a stubborn insurgency.

In Baghdad, seven people were killed and 20 wounded by two bombs in a market in Sadr City, a poor, Shi'ite Muslim area. Later in the day, two roadside bombs targeting a police patrol near a market in another Shi'ite area in the north of the capital killed nine people and wounded 35, police said.

The worst of the bloodshed between Shi'ites and Sunnis set off by the 2003 U.S. invasion has faded, but the continuing violence reflects lingering divisions among Iraqis, and underscores the fragility of security gains.

Mistrust is still strong between the Sunni Muslims who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein and majority Shi'ites.