Two car bombs exploded in Baghdad Thursday, killing 10 people and injuring 16, officials said. Iraq's prime minister insisted the country's forces were ready to take over security duties in most provinces despite rising violence. U.S. officials confirmed that the number of roadside bombs directed against U.S. and Iraqi forces had increased sharply, dramatizing the threat posed by the Sunni-led insurgency despite attention directed to sectarian violence in the capital. A parked car exploded a little after noon near a market in Sadr City, inflicting the casualties and damaging many shops, said police Lt. Adil Salih. The Iraqi army general command said in a statement that seven people were killed and 15 injured. A second car bomb missed a police patrol in Mansour neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing three bystanders and wounding a fourth, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.
Residents said the number of casualties was relatively low because most people had finished their shopping early to escape the 120-degree heat. Sadr City, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood, is one of the most tightly secured areas in Baghdad, patrolled by police as well as members of the Mahdi Army militia of the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The security is to prevent attacks by Sunni insurgents, but the latest attack demonstrates the difficulties of controlling the seething sectarian violence, which has risen steadily since the Feb. 22 explosion at a Shiite shrine in Samarra. The bombing triggered a wave of reprisal killings and has raised fears of an all-out civil war.