BAGHDAD – Back-to-back suicide bombings killed 60 people Friday outside the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad, a day after the country was rocked by its most deadly violence in more than a year, police officials said.

The latest bombings come amid an increase in high-profile attacks that have raised concerns about the abilities of Iraq’s security forces. Such concern led Iraq’s prime minister to order a military task force to investigate the attacks as well as security shortcomings that allowed the assailants to slip through.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the bombings, but these types of attacks are the trademark of Sunni insurgents backed by al-Qaida in Iraq.

The bombers Friday detonated explosives belts within minutes of each other near separate gates of the tomb of prominent Shiite saint Imam Mousa al-Kazim, located in the northern neighborhood of Kazimiyah, said a police official. Another police official said the bombers struck shortly before the start of Friday prayers as worshippers streamed into the mosque — an important site for Shiite pilgrims.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a military task force to investigate the bombings and ordered the battalion and company commanders responsible for security in the area to be relieved of duty during the investigation, said military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi.

Al-Moussawi said the men were being suspended for failing to provide adequate security around the shrine.

Among the dead were 25 Iranian pilgrims, said a police and a hospital official. Both said at least 125 people, including 80 Iranian pilgrims, were injured in the blast.

The U.S. military could not provide further details, saying the area around the shrine was patrolled by Iraqi security forces.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Witnesses at the shrine described a bloody, chaotic scene.

“It is just like a massacre took place,” said Laith Ali, 35, who owns a shop near the shrine.

The attack left the bodies of the dead — some of them burned — scattered on the ground near the entrance of the shrine, he said.

“Where are the security precautions that the security officials are talking about?” he said.

Many of the wounded were taken to nearby Kazimiyah Teaching Hospital, overwhelming the staff. AP Television News footage showed many of the injured were forced to wait outside, including women and children, before they could be seen by medical officials.

The shrine has been a favored target of insurgents, most recently in early April when a bomb left in a plastic bag near the shrine killed seven people and wounded 23.

In January, a man dressed as a woman blew himself up near the shrine, killing more than three dozen people and wounding more than 70.

Imam Mousa al-Kazim is an eighth century saint and one of 12 Shiite saints. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites march to the shrine in Kazimiyah every year to commemorate his death in A.D. 799. Shiites believe al-Kazim is buried in the Baghdad golden-domed shrine.

Friday’s attack came a day after two bombings in separate areas of Iraq killed more than 80 people.

Violence in Iraq is at its lowest levels since the months following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But the recent attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere have exposed gaps in security as Iraq takes over from U.S. forces in protecting the country.

Funerals began Friday for the 88 people killed in the suicide bombings Thursday in Baghdad and in Diyala province.

Coffins were loaded on trucks near the Baghdad offices of the Iraqi Red Crescent, whose volunteers were distributing food parcels in central Baghdad on Thursday when a suicide bomber killed 31 and wounded at least 50 others.

Also Friday, the U.S. military said an American soldier died as a result of a noncombat related incident in the northern Salahuddin province. At least 4,277 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s government has recorded 87,215 of its citizens killed since 2005 in violence ranging from catastrophic bombings to execution-style slayings, according to government statistics obtained by The Associated Press that break open one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war.

Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and an in-depth review of available evidence by The Associated Press, the figures show that more than 110,600 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The number is a minimum count of violent deaths. The official who provided the data to the AP, on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity, estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 percent to 20 percent higher because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.

The Health Ministry has tallied death certificates since 2005, and late that year the United Nations began using them – along with hospital and morgue figures – to publicly release casualty counts. But by early 2007, when sectarian violence was putting political pressure on the U.S. and Iraqi governments, the Iraqi numbers disappeared. The United Nations “repeatedly asked for that cooperation” to resume but never received a response, U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said Thursday.

The data obtained by the AP measure only violent deaths – people killed in attacks such as the shootings, bombings, mortar attacks and beheadings that have ravaged Iraq. It excluded indirect factors such as damage to infrastructure, health care and stress that caused thousands more to die.

Security has improved since the worst years, but almost every person in Iraq has been touched by the violence.

“We have lost everything,” said Badriya Abbas Jabbar, 54. A 2007 truck bombing targeting a market near her Baghdad home killed three granddaughters, a son and a niece.

BAQOUBA, Iraq – The Iraqi battalion leader huddled over the map with his American advisers, showing them how he planned to surround a Sunni enclave where al-Qaida militants were believed hiding.

The Americans nodded in approval and assured Col. Faisal Malik Mohsen the roads would be cleared of bombs. U.S. attack helicopters would provide cover to keep insurgents from escaping.

The raid last week northeast of Baghdad did not find many weapons or flush out scores of hidden fighters. But it accomplished a wider objective: taking another step toward putting Iraqi security forces in control of ground operations.

Such transitions to Iraqi command – occurring at different speeds around the country – have taken on added importance as Washington and Baghdad negotiate a pact that could have the last U.S. soldiers leaving by the end of 2011.

But they also expose the many weaknesses of the Iraqi forces that still rely on American help for everything from air support to bottled water in the field.

U.S. troops even were forced to step in and provide fuel when the National Police did not receive government allotments for about two weeks in July, leaving many units near empty.

Before the Aug. 21 raid, informants had warned that militants would likely stand and fight. The informants were wrong. Instead of bullets, the police commandos were greeted with smiles and glasses of water as they searched houses.

Two men were detained without incident and several assault rifles were seized.

Mohsen, the 42-year-old commander from the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah, and his U.S. advisers backers acknowledged their intelligence had been faulty. The militants probably fled ahead of the operation. Still they proclaimed the raid a success because one more al-Qaida safe haven was gone.

The National Police – a 40,000-strong paramilitary force that is one of the three main pillars of the Iraqi security apparatus – have faced roadside bombs and booby-trapped houses since arriving in Diyala province late last month in the latest government effort to rout insurgents there. Five commandos have been killed and eight wounded.

U.S. officials maintain the force is improving – a necessary step before the Americans can go home. But the Iraqis are still lacking in logistical and explosives expertise as well as medical capabilities.

“When people ask what the exit strategy is, this is it,” said Col. Thearon Williams, 45, of Detroit, commander of the U.S. advisory team for the National Police. “It’s small groups of Americans living among the Iraqis and training them.”

The Iraqi security forces have enjoyed increased public confidence after a series of government offensives against Sunni and Shiite extremists that began in March in the southern city of Basra.

But U.S. forces were needed as backup in every situation and it took a Shiite militia cease-fire and Iranian intervention to stop the fierce fighting that broke out in Basra.

Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies warns against exaggerating the Iraqi troops’ progress, citing serious ethnic and sectarian tensions and a shortage of experienced officers.

“Both Iraqi and U.S. politicians now seem to take such reporting too seriously and be unaware of how much still needs to be done,” he said in a recent analysis.

The Aug. 21 operation showed the interplay between the Iraqis and the Americans trying to get Iraq’s forces into shape.

Before the raid, Mohsen’s American advisers told him to weigh the timing carefully. His Iraqi commanding general called him to a special meeting on the eve of the raid to make sure he was ready.

Mohsen, who is scheduled for leadership training in the United States later this year, was eager for the fight. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that his unit isn’t ready to operate alone.

“We need the Americans,” he said. “We need time. We cannot build a whole country in a few years. We complement each other.”

With the raid set to go, the national policemen in their trademark blue camouflage uniforms rolled out before dawn in blue-and-white pickups reinforced with metal sheeting and piled high with thin mattresses and plastic chairs that served as seats for the gunners.

To ensure surprise, Mohsen led a group on foot through a palm grove, while the convoy waited down the road for the go-ahead to approach the isolated Sunni hamlet of Harbatiliyah, 15 miles northeast of Baqouba. U.S. helicopters buzzed overhead.

“Everybody knows this area used to be a bunker for al-Qaida in Iraq,” Mohsen said. “But they know they can’t fight us.”

Sgt. Razzaq Latif al-Osmi, a 21-year-old newlywed from Nasiriyah, and other squadron leaders ordered their men into formation and began searching the collection of mud thatch compounds, including many houses abandoned last year after most Shiite residents were scared away.

The troops knocked politely on the gates — often welcomed by men holding out their IDs ready to be checked — then carefully picked through piles of thin mattresses, clothing and bags.

Sheiks and young men wearing yellow bands showing they’re members of a U.S.-allied Sunni group came forth to greet the police.

At one point, al-Osmi questioned a teenage boy about Saddam Hussein-era uniforms found in a closet, then patted him on the shoulder and assured him the search was for his own security.

The young squadron commander, with sweat dripping off his face as temperatures pushed to 120 degrees, said he didn’t really expect to find any weapons.

“But it’s important to send a message to the insurgents,” he said.

BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday in the midst of a celebration to welcome home an Iraqi detainee released from U.S. custody, killing at least 25 people, Iraqi officials said.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced the arrest of an al-Qaida in Iraq figure who allegedly planned the 2006 kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll — one of the highest-profile attacks against Westerners in Iraq.

The suicide attack occurred inside one of several tents set up outside a house in the Abu Ghraib area on Baghdad’s western outskirts, according to residents and police. It was unclear if the former detainee was among the casualties.

A woman who was wounded but declined to give her name for security reasons said she was preparing food behind the tents when the blast occurred at about 9 p.m., knocking her and her three young children off their feet.

Residents and police said Ayyid Salim al-Zubaie, a local sheik in the mainly Sunni area, had invited dozens of guests to a banquet in honor of his son, who was released earlier in the day from Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.

Residents said the detainee-son had quarreled with al-Qaida members while in detention and may have been the target of the attack.

The guests also included several members of the local awakening council, a U.S.-allied group that has turned against al-Qaida.

Yassir al-Jumaili, a doctor at the hospital in nearby Fallujah where most of the wounded were taken, gave the death toll as 25 and said at least 29 other people were wounded.

The blast was a grim reminder of the dangers still facing Iraqis despite a sharp decrease in violence after the 2007 U.S. troop buildup, a Sunni decision to join forces with the Americans against al-Qaida and a Shiite militia cease-fire.

The announcement of the arrest of Salim Abdullah Ashur al-Shujayri, also known as Abu Othman, was a major breakthrough in a series of kidnappings.

He was captured Aug. 11 in Baghdad and accused of being “the planner behind the kidnapping” of Carroll, a Christian Science Monitor reporter who was seized Jan. 7, 2006 and released three months later, according to the military.

The statement also said al-Shujayri’s associates were involved in the kidnappings of Christian peace activists and British aid worker Margaret Hassan, but did not elaborate.

Kidnappings of Westerners forced foreigners to flee Iraq or take refuge in heavily guarded compounds, diminishing the ability of aid groups and journalists to operate. Many of the victims were butchered and their deaths recorded on videotapes distributed to Arab satellite TV stations or posted on the Web.

Hassan, 59, the director of CARE international in Iraq, was abducted in Baghdad in October 2004 and shown on a video pleading for her life, calling on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw troops from Iraq.

She was killed a month later, but her body was never found. The case drew special attention because Hassan, who was married to an Iraqi, had lived in the country for 30 years and spent nearly half her life helping Iraqis.

Four men from the Chicago-based group, Christian Peacemaker Teams, disappeared Nov. 26, 2005, in Baghdad and videotapes later showed them in captivity. One of the hostages, American Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., was found shot dead. The other three — two Canadians and a Briton — were later rescued.

Carroll was seized in west Baghdad and her interpreter was killed. The kidnappers, a formerly unknown group calling itself the Revenge Brigade, demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq. U.S. officials freed some female detainees but said the decision was unrelated to the demands.

The statement said U.S. troops also captured another al-Qaida figure — Ali Rash Nasir Jiyad al-Shammari — on Aug. 17 in Baghdad. He was accused of being a senior adviser for the terror network and funneling money, weapons and explosives to insurgents in the capital “during its most active operational period in early 2007,” the military said.

Al-Shammari, also known as Abu Tiba, personally approved targets for car and suicide bombings targeting Iraqi civilians, the military said.

The military statement said al-Qaida in Iraq conducted almost 300 bombings, killing more than 1,500 civilians and wounding more than twice that many in 2007, compared with 28 attacks that killed 125 Iraqi civilians in the first half of this year.

“The capture of Abu Tiba and Abu Othman eliminates two of the few remaining experienced leaders in the AQI network,” said military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll.

Also Sunday, the U.S. military said a 13-year-old girl wearing a bomb-laden vest surrendered to Iraqi police in Baqouba rather than blow herself up. She led police to a second suicide vest and was detained, the military said.

Women have increasingly been recruited by insurgents to carry out attacks because it’s easier for them to evade security checks.

Associated Press writer Saad Abdul-Kadir contributed to this report.

BAGHDAD – The U.S. military admitted Sunday that American soldiers killed innocent civilians after opening fire on a car last month on the heavily secured Baghdad airport road.

The statement — which called the man and two women killed “law abiding citizens of Iraq” — reversed earlier military claims that they were suspected militants who shot at a parked American convoy.

The military blamed the shooting on a series of misunderstandings and said “neither the soldiers nor civilians involved in the incident were at fault.”

The June 25 shooting deaths sparked controversy after Iraqi officials identified the three people killed as bank employees, not militants. The initial military statement claiming they were suspected militants raised concerns because it suggested that tight security on the road leading to Baghdad international airport had been penetrated.

An investigation showed the soldiers fired at the civilian car when it failed to follow orders to stop as it approached the convoy, which had pulled to the side of the road because of maintenance problems, the military said Sunday.

The soldiers became alarmed when they noticed the car approaching at what appeared to be a high rate of speed despite obstructions in the road, the military said.

“Soldiers located at the rear of the convoy perceived the rapidly approaching vehicle as a threat,” the military said, “and executed established escalation of force measures,” which include warning shots.

“When the vehicle failed to respond to the soldiers’ warning measures, it was engaged with small arms fire,” the statement added.

The military also found there was no weapon recovered from the car — as originally stated in the initial military statement on the shooting.

“A thorough investigation determined that the driver and passengers were law-abiding citizens of Iraq,” the statement said.

It said the initial report was based on numerous soldiers who “strongly believed they were being fired upon from the vehicle” and a mistaken belief that the Iraqi police arriving at the scene collected a weapon.

The soldiers involved in the shooting were particularly nervous because they were regularly based in eastern Baghdad and were not familiar with the area on the airport road, according to Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.

Much of the area surrounding the Baghdad airport is controlled by the U.S. military, which has its main headquarters on the nearby Camp Victory complex. But the shooting occurred on a part of the road that is controlled by a private security company, Stover said.

He said several soldiers insisted that they believed they were under attack because they “saw flashes that they believed to be gunfire coming from the front passenger window” while others reported hearing shots.

It was not clear what caused the misperceptions.

“This was an extremely unfortunate and tragic incident,” another U.S. spokesman Col. Allen Batschelet said in the statement. “Our deepest regrets of sympathy and condolences go out to the family. We are taking several corrective measures to amend and eliminate the possibility of such situations happening in the future.”

Family members of victims of a car bomb react in front of a hospital in Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Tuesday, April 15, 2008. According to police and hospital officials, at least 38 people were killed and 64 wounded in the blast when a car parked in front of a restaurant in downtown Baqouba exploded, just before noon on Tuesday.

Car bombs ripped through crowded areas in Baghdad and former insurgent strongholds to the north and west of the capital on Tuesday, killing nearly 60 people and breaking a recent lull in violence in the predominantly Sunni areas.

The attacks were a deadly reminder of the threat posed by suspected Sunni insurgents even as clashes between Shiite militia fighters and U.S.-Iraqi forces continued elsewhere.

The first blast Tuesday occurred in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, when a car parked in front of a restaurant exploded just before noon across the street from the central courthouse and other government offices.

Many of the victims were people visiting the government offices, petition writers helping people with documents in stalls outside or the occupants of cars that were caught in the explosion as they passed through the area, witnesses said. Several cars and minibuses were set ablaze, while more than 10 shops and the restaurant were heavily damaged.

One survivor described a huge fire that sent black smoke billowing into the sky and left charred bodies inside their cars.

“I was on my way to the government office when a big explosion occurred nearby,” said the witness, who would only identify himself by his nickname Abu Ali. “As I approached the site, I saw cars on fire, burned bodies and damaged shops with shattered glass everywhere.”

At least 40 people were killed and 70 wounded in the blast, according to hospital officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information.

AP Television News footage showed many of the bodies covered in crisp white sheets in the main hospital’s courtyard while the emergency room inside was overwhelmed with the wounded.

The U.S. military in northern Iraq gave a slightly lower toll, saying 35 Iraqi citizens were killed, including a policeman, and 66 wounded in the attack. It also said three buses were destroyed and 10 shops were damaged.

It was the deadliest bombing in Iraq since a pair of female suicide bombers struck two pet markets, killing 99 people in a coordinated attack in Baghdad on Feb. 1.

Another parked car bomb exploded near a kebab restaurant at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in an industrial area in Ramadi, killing at least 13 people, including three policemen, and wounding 20 other people, police Capt. Abu Saif al-Anbari said. Hospital officials said two children were among the dead.

Ahmed al-Dulaimi, a 27-year-old mechanic, was at the restaurant when the blast occurred but escaped injury because he was sitting at a back table. He said his cousin, who owned the restaurant, had been killed.

“Pieces of flesh flew into the air and the roof fell over us. I saw the horrible sight of bodies without heads or without legs or hands,” he said.

Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, is the capital of Anbar province and has largely been sealed off by checkpoints.

Like Baqouba, the area has seen a sharp decline in violence in recent months as tribal leaders have joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq.

The U.S. military said overall attacks in Diyala province have dropped more than 76 percent since June 2007.

“Although attacks such as today’s event are tragic, it is not indicative of the overall security situation in Baqouba,” Maj. Mike Garcia, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Diyala, said in a statement.

A parked car bomb also targeted a police patrol in central Baghdad, killing four civilians who were passing by and wounding 15 other people, police said.

The relative calm in predominantly Sunni areas has coincided with clashes between Shiite militia fighters and U.S.-Iraqi forces in Baghdad and the oil-rich southern city of Basra.

But while the Bush administration has begun citing what it calls Iranian-backed Shiite factions as the greatest threat to Iraq’s stability, American commanders have consistently warned that al-Qaida-led insurgents continue to pose a serious danger.

Two car bombs and a suicide attack also killed 18 people in northwestern Iraq on Monday.

In other violence Tuesday, U.S. soldiers backed by an airstrike killed six militants during clashes in the Sudayrah area near Baghdad’s main Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, the military said.

Iraqi police in the area claimed that two boys were among those killed in the airstrike, but the military said no civilian casualties were reported.

Lt. Col. Steve Stover said separately that American troops killed four militants who fired rocket-propelled grenades at a tank elsewhere in the area.

Clashes also broke out later Tuesday in Sadr City, leaving four militiamen killed and 15 others wounded, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.

Associated Press writers Hamid Ahmed and Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

A man, injured in a car bomb attack, is brought to a hospital in Baqouba, Iraq, Tuesday.

Residents look at Iraqi security forces inspecting area after a parked car bomb exploded behind the al-Elwaya telephones center downtown Baghdad, Tuesday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Five Iranians detained by U.S.-led forces were working in a decade-old government liaison office that was in the process of being upgraded to a consulate, the Iraqi foreign minister said Friday.

Tehran condemned the raid in the Kurdish-controlled northern city of Irbil and urged Iraq to push for the Iranians’ release.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the building where the Iranians were detained Thursday had operated with Iraqi government approval for 10 years.

“We are now in the process of changing these offices to consulates,” he said. “It is not a new office. This liaison office has been there for a long time.”

He also echoed concerns the U.S. and Iran were dragging Iraq into their fight.

“We don’t want Iraq to be a battleground for settling scores with other countries,” Zebari, a Kurd, told CNN.

The diplomatic tussle came at an unwelcome time for the United States as President Bush faces criticism over his new strategy for ending the violence in Iraq. Bush also vowed to isolate Iran and Syria, which the U.S. has accused of fueling attacks in Iraq.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani plans a trip to Syria on Sunday, the highest-level Iraqi visit to the country in more than 24 years. The neighbors restored diplomatic relations in December that were cut in 1982 amid ideological disputes between Damascus and the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s office, meanwhile, rejected Bush’s plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq as part of an effort to curb sectarian attacks.

“We reject Bush’s new strategy and we think it will fail,” said Abdul-Razzaq al-Nidawi, a senior official in al-Sadr’s office. He said Iraq’s problems were due to the presence of U.S. troops and called for their withdrawal.

Local leaders of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence, said they were bracing for an attack and avoiding appearing in public with their weapons.

Zebari’s Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, called on the Iraqi government to secure the release of the five Iranians, Iranian state television reported. “Such illegal and adventurous acts by the U.S. should be stopped,” the broadcast quoted Mottaki as saying.

Mottaki condemned the raid, saying it contravened the Vienna Convention. “This behavior by the United States contradicts its claims of providing security in Iraq,” he was quoted as saying.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin also harshly criticized the detentions, calling them a “flagrant violation” of international conventions.

“It’s absolutely unacceptable when the military storms a foreign consular office on the territory of another state,” Kamynin said. “The unlawful actions by the U.S. servicemen mark an open abuse of a mandate issued to the multinational forces in Iraq.”

The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations says consular premises are “inviolable,” but it was not clear how that would apply as the building was not a consulate.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the detained Iranians were not carrying diplomatic passports and the building “was not a consulate. This was not an officially accredited diplomatic facility.”

Pressed to describe the office, McCormack said it was a “building that the Iranians were using, occupying, that was Iraqi territory.”

Zebari also said U.S. forces tried to seize more people at the airport in Irbil, 220 miles north of Baghdad, prompting a confrontation with Kurdish troops.

A Pentagon official in Washington said that after troops detained the Iranians, they learned another person might have escaped and fled to the airport. An American team went to the airport, where they “surprised” Kurdish forces, who apparently had not been informed they were coming, said the Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the incident.

Meanwhile, sectarian violence persisted. Suspected Shiite militiamen attacked a Sunni mosque in a religiously mixed neighborhood of Baghdad, prompting clashes that wounded two guards, police said.

Attackers later blew up a Shiite mosque that was under construction in the northern city of Kirkuk, police Col. Anwar Hassan said. No casualties were reported.

At least 19 people were reported killed or dead nationwide, including 10 bullet-riddled bodies found in Baghdad and an Iraqi journalist who was killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul.

Khudr Younis al-Obaidi was the second journalist killed this year. Associated Press staffer Ahmed Hadi Naji was found shot in the back last week.

Associated Press writers Pauline Jelinek in Washington and Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.