Car bomber strikes near soccer field; 18 are killed

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Sixteen children playing soccer and two women were killed Monday in a car bombing in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, an Iraqi official said Tuesday, in an attack that Iraqi leaders decried as horrific.

The bomb, hidden under wood panels loaded on a Kia pickup, exploded in a residential area near a soccer field where the children were playing, said Col. Tariq al-Alwani, security supervisor in Anbar province.

"It's a tragedy that the kids are targeted," al-Alwani said. He said news of the bombing emerged a day late because most reporters have left Ramadi out of concern for their safety.

The offices of President Jalal Talabani, who is hospitalized in Amman, Jordan, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the bombing. Al-Maliki blamed "criminal gangs" for the "crime against children in their innocent playgrounds," the Los Angeles Times reported.

Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, is a stronghold of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq. More than one-quarter of the U.S. troops killed in Iraq have died in Anbar, where President Bush is sending 4,000 additional Marines as part of a temporary increase of U.S. forces.

Nearly 24 hours after the car bombing, another explosion shook the city when U.S. troops sought to destroy 15 bags of seized explosives. U.S. military officials said they misjudged the strength of the explosives, which they detonated Tuesday evening inside the courtyard of an empty building, and the resulting blast injured at least 30 civilians, among them nine children and seven women.

None of the injuries was life-threatening, said Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, a military spokeswoman. Eight people were taken to medical facilities and the rest were treated at the scene, she said.

In Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi forces continued implementing a security plan to pacify the capital, the second such effort in six months. In a raid in the Shiite district of Sadr City, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers detained 16 leaders of the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia controlled by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The military said the detained militia leaders "direct and perpetrate sectarian murder, torture and kidnapping."

Abdul Razzaq al-Nedawi, an al-Sadr aide, said the detentions were unjustified and the operation appeared to be an attempt to provoke the Mahdi Army, which has lain low since stricter security measures went into effect in Baghdad earlier this month.

"The occupation forces want to drag Sadr [supporters] into war," Nedawi said.

Also Tuesday, the U.S. military reported that four service members had been killed in two incidents. Three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb Tuesday while conducting a route-clearance mission southwest of Baghdad. The fourth soldier was killed Monday night near Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad. The soldier's Humvee struck an improvised explosive device (IED).

At least 3,161 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The U.S. military also said Tuesday that a specialist has been convicted of negligent homicide for killing a soldier in June while cleaning his weapon. Spc. Daniel Turner was sentenced to 15 months confinement and a bad-conduct discharge.

At Fort Benning, Ga., meanwhile, an Army medic, Spc. Chris Rolan, pleaded guilty to the shooting death of a fellow soldier in Iraq during a night of heavy drinking.

Rolan, 23, initially was charged with premeditated murder in the Nov. 16, 2005, death of Pvt. Dylan Paytas, 20, while the two were serving with the 3rd Infantry Brigade in Iraq. He pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder and other charges under a deal with prosecutors. The two soldiers had been arguing at Camp Warhorse in Baqouba, when Rolan shot Paytas four times with his 9 mm pistol, according to witness testimony.

Material from The Associated Press

is included in this report.