A car bomb exploded Tuesday at a soccer field on the outskirts of Ramadi, killing 18 children, Iraqi TV reported.
The soccer field is in western Ramadi — capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province. The children were playing on the field when the blast occurred, Iraqi TV reported. No other details on the attack were immediately available.
The soccer field attack followed terrorist bombings in Baghdad at a popular ice cream shop, a parking lot and a restaurant that killed eight people and wounded 24 on Tuesday.
Iraqi police say they believe new coalition security tactics are forcing insurgents to shift bombing attacks away from parked cars in the streets to alternative locations.
The new U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown forbids parking cars on Baghdad’s main streets.
Tuesday’s deadliest reported bombing took place in a popular ice cream shop in central Baghdad’s mostly Shiite Karrada district. A suicide car bomber slammed into the shop, killing five people and wounding 10 others, according to an Interior Ministry official.
In the city’s Tayaran Square, another bomber hid explosives inside a restaurant, where the blast killed two people and wounded eleven, the official said.
In a separate attack, Iraqi police said a car bomb blast Tuesday in a parking lot in the Karrada district killed one person and wounded three others.
Suspect arrested in attack on vice president
Authorities in Iraq said Tuesday they arrested a suspect in the attempted assassination of Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq’s two vice presidents.
Mahdi received minor injuries in Monday’s attack, which took place during a celebration at a meeting hall. A bomb that was planted under a chair just a few meters from Mahdi killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40 others, including two ministry officials.
The suspect who was arrested was directly involved in the attack, said Laith Shubbar, head of Mahdi’s media office.
The U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq issued a statement Tuesday condemning the attack and congratulating Mahdi “on his safe and immediate resumption of his duties.”
The attackers have been thought to be Sunni extremists targeting government officials.
Mahdi is a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Shiite political group, which is a major component of Iraq’s ruling United Iraqi Alliance.
Raids net suspected insurgents
Coalition forces seized 12 suspected insurgents Tuesday in raids throughout Iraq.
The U.S. military said the coalition raids netted an emir with al Qaeda in Iraq and 11 other suspected insurgents who were captured in five Iraqi cities: Baghdad, Mosul, Tikrit, Ramadi and Falluja.
The dozen suspected insurgents who were captured included three of the emir’s “associates,” according to the U.S. military. All of the arrested suspects are thought to be involved in the making of roadside bombs.
Two others in the dozen were detained in Baghdad. They have “alleged ties” to the al Qaeda in Iraq network, the U.S. military said.
Two of the coalition arrests occurred in the northern city of Mosul, where troops seized two people with suspected links to a key al Qaeda leader who is suspected of coordinating “attacks against Iraqi security and U.S. military personnel.”
In Anbar province, a suspected insurgent was arrested in Falluja, and another was arrested in Ramadi. In the Salaheddin province city of Tikrit, two people were detained.
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