Pat Dollard | Young Americans

BAGHDAD (AP) - A car bomb exploded near a market in a Shiite enclave northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 32 people and wounding 50, police said Wednesday. Hospital officials and victims said chlorine gas may have been used in the attack, but police and the U.S. military denied that.

Clashes also broke out in the mostly Shiite city of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, when militants fought with police who had arrested two wanted militia members, police said. Nine Iraqis were killed and 75 wounded, police said.

In Baghdad, at least nine mortar rounds or rockets slammed into the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, killing two Iraqis and wounding 10 people—none of them Americans, U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said. It was the second such attack in as many days.

The Green Zone, a sprawling complex on the west bank of the Tigris River, also was hit by a rocket Tuesday, wounding nine foreigners. Fintor said he could not provide specific nationalities but they were not Americans or Iraqis.

A recent increase in mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and major Iraqi government offices, has raised concern, especially since they are occurring during the U.S.- led crackdown.

Meanwhile, thousands of U.S. forces continued to search for three U.S. soldiers feared captured by al-Qaida last week. According to senior Defense Department officials, the U.S. military is offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the soldiers.

The car bomb attack occurred Tuesday evening in the village of Abu Saydah in volatile Diyala province, police said.

Residents of the farming village of 10,000 people said the attack appeared to be revenge for a confrontation a month ago in which locals killed 12 al-Qaida fighters. They said residents had fought back against Sunni militants trying to storm the village and 10 days later received threats to leave the village or face death.

Jassim Mohammed, a 35-year-old car dealer whose house was near the blast site, said the car bomb was parked between two tea shops and a small market.

“I rushed to the scene and helped carry the wounded to civilian cars,” he said, describing bloodstained pavement and body parts strewn across the site.

Hospital officials and victims said it appeared chlorine gas was used in the attack since many of the wounded were having difficulty breathing and their sight was affected. But Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a U.S. military spokesman in northern Iraq, and provincial Iraqi police officials denied that toxic gas was involved.

“Our folks on the scene … who are investigating this do not have any of those indications,” Donnelly told The Associated Press. But the investigation was continuing, he said.

A hospital official said the facility had received three bodies and 11 wounded, who all showed symptoms of chlorine poisoning. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

One man had a white cloth across his eyes as he lay in his hospital bed; others were bandaged from head to toe.

Chlorine gas attacks the eyes and lungs within seconds, causing difficulty in breathing and skin irritation in low-level exposure. Inhaled at extremely high levels, it dissolves in the lungs to form hydrochloric acid. The acid burns lung tissue, essentially drowning a person as liquid fills the lungs.

The chemical has been used a number of times recently in insurgent attacks.

Last month, a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq suicide bomber smashed a truck loaded with TNT and toxic chlorine gas into a police checkpoint in Ramadi, killing at least 27 people. It was the ninth such attack since the group’s first known use of a chemical weapon in January.

Abu Saydah is a mainly Shiite village about 25 miles northeast of the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Baqouba, the capital of the province that has seen a recent spike in violence largely blamed on militants who fled Baghdad ahead of a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown.

Kadim Hussein, a 45-year-old farmer who was taken to the Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City, a Shiite area in Baghdad, claimed the hospitals in Baqouba would only accept Sunnis.

“My eyes became puffy due the chlorine gas that was packed in the car bomb,” he said, adding he also had difficulty breathing. “Also, I had many pieces of shrapnel in my chest and right shoulder.”

Diyala province—with its mixed Shiite and Sunni Muslim population—has been the scene of frequent sectarian violence as well as attacks by anti-U.S. insurgents.

On Wednesday, clashes between police and the Mahdi Army erupted about 2 a.m. in the center of Nasiriyah, a city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad. Both sides were still on the streets by sunrise, and shops remained closed, police said.

The fighting killed six civilians, two militants and one policeman, and 75 Iraqis were wounded, police said.

Police said the fighting began after the two militia members were arrested for allegedly firing mortar rounds in the area, and their comrades threatened to attack police if the suspects were not released.

Fighting often erupts between supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and members of the rival Shiite Fadhila in mostly Shiite southern Iraq.

A new U.S. government report released Tuesday showed that the recent U.S. troop increase and security crackdown concentrated in Baghdad has done little to reduce the number of attacks in Iraq.

The average number of attacks rose from 71 a day in January 2006 to a high of 176 per day in October, according to the report from the Government Accountability Office. In February, when the troop increase began to take effect, daily attacks dropped slightly to 164. Daily attacks averaged 157 in March and 149 in April, the report said.

The report, which cited the U.S.-led forces in Iraq for the figures, did not measure the numbers killed and wounded in the attacks.

Military officials have said that since the security crackdown in the Baghdad region began more than 12 weeks ago, Sunni insurgents have hit back with car bombs more powerful and deadly than those used previously.

Chief U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the search for the missing soldiers has turned up no information suggesting the captives have been killed.

He said one U.S. soldier has been wounded during the search operation. About 600 Iraqis have been questioned and 11 detained, he said. The military has received more than 140 tips from locals in the last two days that the coalition has used to target its search for the captives.

On Tuesday, U.S. aircraft dropped leaflets in a thinly populated farming area 20 miles south of Baghdad, seeking information about the soldiers.

On Monday, an al-Qaida front group—the Islamic State of Iraq—warned the Americans in a Web statement to call off the hunt “if you want their safety.”

The U.S. command said American soldiers have questioned more than 450 people and detained at least 11 since the search on Saturday. Trucks with loudspeakers also roamed the area urging people to come forward with information.

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Associated Press writer Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad contributed to this story.