Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying workers to Baghdad airport yesterday, underlining the challenge facing the US-backed government in implementing a new security plan aimed at stemming sectarian bloodshed in the capital.
A hospital source said 15 bodies and 15 wounded people had been brought to the hospital after the attack in the Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Amriya in western Baghdad. Police and an Interior Ministry source said four were killed and nine wounded.
A boy aged around 15 told a Reuters reporter at the entrance to the airport zone that he was one of five or six people to escape the bus which was carrying about 30 people, all Shi'ites being bussed to work from a Shi'ite area.
"All my colleagues were shot, we don't know where the bullets came from, they came from everywhere," said the boy, who gave his name only as Karar. He was crying and his clothes were covered in mud from his escape in the rain.
"I survived and some of my colleagues, around five or six people. All the others were lying on the ground, I don't know if they were killed or wounded," he said. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced a major security plan for Baghdad on Saturday, vowing to crush illegal armed groups "regardless of sect or politics" - suggesting he may be ready to tackle militias loyal to his fellow Shi'ites, as demanded by Washington and the once dominant Sunni minority.
Sectarian violence is killing hundreds of people a week, mostly in Baghdad, and securing the capital is seen as crucial to stopping Iraq's descent into full-scale civil war. US President George W. Bush is reshuffling his commanders and diplomats in Iraq and preparing to unveil a new strategy this week that officials say may include a proposal to add 20,000 US troops to those already in Baghdad.
The New York Times said Mr Bush's new Iraq policy would include "benchmarks" for the Iraqi government to meet to ease sectarian violence and stabilise the country - a touchy subject for a government determined to prove its independence and sovereignty.
The newspaper cited senior administration officials as saying that the goals include steps to draw more Sunnis into the Iraqi political process and to finalise a measure on the distribution of oil revenue. In a public spat with Washington two months ago, Mr Maliki angrily denied being set US targets.
The new Democratic Congress warned it may give any suggestion of an increase in troops a tough ride. Nancy Pelosi, new speaker of the House of Representatives, said the previous, Republican-controlled Congress had given Mr Bush a "blank cheque".
Sectarian tension has been heightened by the hanging of Saddam Hussein at the end of last year and by an illicitly filmed video showing the Sunni Arab former president being taunted by followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Nine days after Saddam was hanged, his cousin "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majeed was among six Baath party officials back in court yesterday accused of trying to wipe out Iraq's ethnic Kurds in the northern mountains in 1988.