BAGHDAD — Bombers killed at least 47 people in two attacks Saturday that made increasingly clear the weaknesses of a U.S.-Iraqi security plan, including 37 people who died in the holy city of Karbala when an explosion tore through a bus station near a Shiite shrine.
In Baghdad, 10 people died when a blast hit a bridge linking the two sides of the capital.
It was the second time in three days that a bomb went off on a bridge spanning the Tigris River, which snakes through Baghdad. While Saturday’s attack appeared aimed at a military checkpoint on the Jadriya bridge, and not at the structure itself, the incident was sure to increase anxiety among Iraqis who must cross bridges frequently.
Saturday’s bombings, coming in the third month of the security plan, left scores wounded.
Despite the deployment of thousands of additional U.S. and Iraqi troops, bombers continue to get past checkpoints and even have infiltrated the capital’s fortified Green Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi government offices are. A bombing inside the Iraqi parliament building Thursday killed a lawmaker.
In addition, U.S. military officials acknowledge that the security focus in Baghdad has driven insurgents to areas outside the capital, where large-scale attacks have increased.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the U.S. military spokesman, said at a media briefing Wednesday that civilian deaths have gone up nationwide since January.
In Karbala on Saturday, frustration with the government’s inability to protect its citizens boiled over into violence.
The bombing took place a few hundred feet from one of Iraq’s most revered Shiite sites, the Imam Hussein shrine. Afterward, young men began hurling rocks to protest the failure of security forces to protect them. Some then marched to the provincial government headquarters to continue their protest. They dispersed after police fired shots in the air, a government spokesman said.
The Karbala governor, Akeel Mahmoud Qazali, accused the prime minister and the Defense Ministry of failing to respond to requests for more security in the city, which is often packed with Shiites making pilgrimages.
Saturday’s bomber got past security officials and entered a garage, where he detonated the device, Qazali said.
A witness, Raid Zaini, said police fired shots to disperse the protesters, killing one young man. That fueled more anger, and the demonstrators headed toward the government office, Zaini said. Hospital officials said more than 150 people were injured in the bombing.
The incidents probably will test the commitment of politicians who, after Thursday’s parliament bombing, vowed to put aside their differences and work together to stabilize Iraq. By Saturday, those promises, uttered in a solemn session Friday, seemed to have been forgotten.
Saturday’s parliament session included testy exchanges among politicians about who was to blame for security lapses that allowed a bomber to enter the building.
Later, Nasser Rubaie, leader of the Shiite political bloc loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada Sadr, blamed the U.S. occupation for the violence in Iraq.
Last week, the bloc threatened to pull out of the government because of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s refusal to call for the ouster of U.S. forces.
Dozens of other attacks plagued Iraqis on Saturday. In one of the more ominous incidents, police in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum said one resident died and 11 were sickened after a neighborhood water tank was tainted with chlorine, The Associated Press reported. It was unclear whether the poisoning was intentional. Some recent bombings have been accompanied by the release of chlorine gas, which can be toxic.
