Powerful bombs tore through markets in two cities Monday evening, killing at least 35 people and wounding 86, police reported.
One bomb blast killed at least 15 people and injured 56 Monday in the main market of the Shiite city of Hillah, police said. At least 20 people died and 30 wounded in a bicycle bombing in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, according to police in the city.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, said a Marine died of wounds suffered in combat in Anbar province.
According to the AP, the market south of Baghdad was crowded with shoppers buying groceries and vegetables before dinner.
Also Monday, gunmen attacked a convoy assigned to Iraq's most senior Sunni politician, killing a bodyguard, police said. Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Iraq Accordance Front, was not in any of the vehicles.
Meanwhile, a key Shiite legislator said seven Sunni groups had contacted the government to declare their readiness to join efforts at national reconciliation. The seven groups, most of them believed made up of former followers of Saddam Hussein's government have said they want a truce, Hassan al-Suneid, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party, told The Associated Press.
Al-Maliki was considering a possible meeting with leaders of the groups or contacts through intermediaries, al-Suneid added. He identified only six of the seven organizations by name, listing them as the 1920 Revolution Brigades, the Mohammed Army, Abtal al-Iraq (Heroes of Iraq), the 9th of April Group, al-Fatah Brigades, and the Brigades of the General Command of the Armed Forces.
