More security pledged in wake of Iraq attacks

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi forces will expand their security operation into eastern Baghdad — including Shiite militia strongholds — the Defense Ministry said Friday, a day after a barrage of coordinated attacks across those areas killed 64 people and wounded 286.

Rescue crews pulled bodies from the rubble after Thursday night's violence, which police said included explosives planted in apartments, car bombs and several rocket and mortar attacks on mainly Shiite neighborhoods.

The bloodshed capped a violent week that saw hundreds of Iraqis killed, despite a massive security crackdown that has targeted some of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods.

Authorities reported more violence Friday, with a mortar attack on an open-air market in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, that killed three people and wounded 12.

Thursday's attacks centered on neighborhoods controlled by Shiite militias, some of which Sunni Arabs accuse of running death squads.

Defense Ministry spokesman Muhammad Al-Askari said security forces planned to expand in a matter of days into an area of eastern Baghdad that includes the neighborhoods targeted Thursday.

The move is part of a crackdown that targets the capital's most violent districts in phases and has seen an extra 12,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops deployed in the capital.

Sadr City would also be included, al-Askari said.

Meanwhile, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani has ordered the Iraqi national flag to be replaced with the Kurdish one in his northern autonomous region in what appeared to be another move toward more self-rule in the north, local officials said Friday.

The order was issued Thursday and applies to the Kurdish region, said Beshraw Ahmed, a spokesman for the Sulaimaniyah municipality.

Iraq's northern Kurdish region has slowly been gaining more autonomy since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Sunni Arabs fear that Kurds are pushing for secession under the nation's new federal system, a step which, if imitated by the Shiite majority in the oil-rich south, would leave Sunnis with little more than date groves and sand.