A booby-trapped bicycle went off near a cafe serving tea and food during Ramadan fasting hours Sunday, killing at least six people in northern Iraq, police said. The attack in Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, came a day after al-Qaeda in Iraq announced a new offensive in Ramadan.
The explosion occurred about 11:30 a.m.. According to the AP, locals said a boy left the bicycle bomb near the cafe, which was located in a popular market and was one of the few open during daylight hours despite Ramadan.
Two of the slain victims were in the cafe, while three were in the market, police chief Capt. Abbas Mohammed said. He also said 19 people were hurt.
In the capital Baghdad, a car bomb ripped through crowds outside an electrical goods shopping mall, killing two people and wounding seven, security and medical officials said. Gunmen then opened fire on security forces as they rushed to the scene in the mainly Sunni area of Mansour, the officials said. Seven civilians were killed and 12 wounded in the firefights.
In other violence reported by police on Sunday, a mortar shell landed near the Shaab stadium in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding three. Gunmen also killed a police officer near his home near Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, late Saturday.
Meanwhile, several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were detained. The group marched from the White House to the Capitol to demand an end to the Iraq war.
Counterprotesters lined the sidewalks behind metal barricades. There were some heated shouting matches between the two sides.
The arrests came after protesters lay down on the Capitol lawn in what they called a "die in" - with signs on top of their bodies to represent soldiers killed in Iraq. When police took no action, some of the protesters started climbing over a barricade at the foot of the Capitol steps.
Many were arrested without a struggle after they jumped over the waist-high barrier, the AP reported. At least two people were showered with chemical spray.
The number of arrests by Capitol Police on Saturday was much higher than previous anti-war rallies in Washington this year.
