A string of bomb attacks killed 22 people in Iraq on Saturday as WashingtonÂ’s new ambassador vowed that the US would do everything to curb the unrelenting bloodshed. Ryan Crocker, a fluent Arabic speaker with extensive experience in the Middle East, this week became the third US ambassador to Iraq in as many years and presented his credentials to President Jalal Talabani on Saturday. The deadliest car bombing killed five and wounded 15 when it exploded outside the Al-Sadr hospital in BaghdadÂ’s Shia enclave of Sadr City. A second car bomb killed four people and wounded another 20 near a service station in Hilla, a police source said.
In the mixed town of Tuz Khurmatu, near IraqÂ’s contentious northern oil hub of Kirkuk, another two civilians were killed and 11 wounded when a car bomb exploded in a central square, local police chief Abbas Mohammed Amin said. In the town of Suweira, south of Baghdad, three civilians were killed and seven wounded in a roadside bomb explosion.