Bombs Kill 20 in Sunni Insurgent Stronghold

BAGHDAD, May 7 -- Two suicide car bombers in the western city of Ramadi killed at least 20 people on Monday, Iraqi authorities said, striking a place described by the U.S. military as a symbol of success against Sunni extremists.

The first bomb detonated at a police checkpoint, leaving five people dead and 25 wounded, police said. Fifteen minutes later and half a mile away, a second bomber blew up a small truck rigged with explosives in a busy commercial area, killing 15 people and wounding 15, said Lt. Col. Jubair Abu Ahmed of the Anbar provincial police. The blast made ruins of several homes and shops that sold paint, medicine and wedding supplies.

Iraqi army Lt. Col. Thamir Ahmed blamed the attacks on the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. He said the body of one of the bombers was found by authorities 300 yards from the car he detonated, still strapped in the driver's seat.

Ramadi is the capital of the insurgent heartland of Anbar, where Sunni groups are engaged in a struggle for leadership. A coalition of Sunni tribal leaders calling itself the Anbar Salvation Council recently allied with U.S. forces against al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development the U.S. military says has helped calm the province and facilitated the establishment of neighborhood military outposts in Ramadi. But the partnership has also prompted revenge attacks by insurgents, local officials say.

"This is a cowardly attack, and they will not succeed in destabilizing the situation in the city," said Jassem Mohammed Salih, a local politician and member of the Anbar Salvation Council. He vowed that the council would "react to these attacks in the next few days."

The Ramadi bombings came one day after a wave of violence killed dozens of Iraqis and eight U.S. soldiers. One of the attacks, a roadside bombing in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, killed six soldiers and a journalist identified by the Reuters news agency as Russian freelance photographer Dmitry Chebotayev. The Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent umbrella network, asserted responsibility Monday for the Diyala attack and another bombing Sunday that killed 12 Iraqi police officers in Samarra, about 65 miles north of the capital.

More than 50 other Iraqi civilians and security force members were killed or found dead Monday, police said. In the Shiite district of Bayaa in Baghdad, mortar fire killed a family of five, raising tensions in an area where a car bombing Sunday killed more than 40 people. In Diyala province, armed men stormed homes and killed 12 people. Police found 22 unidentified, bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad and eight others in Diyala.

Also Monday, the U.S. military reported that a U.S. soldier was killed by gunfire in western Baghdad on Sunday and a senior commander was wounded last week.

Col. B.D. Farris, commander of the 2nd "Falcon" Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, suffered a gunshot wound Thursday as he surveyed a controversial wall built around a Sunni enclave in eastern Baghdad, according to the military and news services. He is in stable condition.

It was unclear if Farris was hit by a sniper, but such shootings have become an increasing worry for U.S. military personnel in Iraq. "The escalation (and perceived effectiveness) of sniper attacks is an important combat stressor," according to a Pentagon survey, released last week, of the mental health of soldiers and Marines in Iraq.

The U.S. military's construction of a three-mile-long, 12-foot-high wall around Adhamiyah sparked outcry from residents, who said it would stoke sectarian tensions by segregating them from Shiite neighborhoods. Military officials have said the Adhamiyah barrier, like those planned or already built in at least nine other Baghdad neighborhoods, is a temporary measure intended to protect residents, not divide them.

In raids across Iraq on Sunday and Monday, American and Iraqi forces detained 24 suspected members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the U.S. military said.

Other Washington Post staff in Iraq and staff writer Thomas E. Ricks in Washington contributed to this report.