Suicide bombers kill 45 in Iraqi town

BAGHDAD, Feb 1 (Reuters) Two suicide bombers killed 45 people and wounded 150 when they blew themselves up at a crowded market in the Iraqi town of Hilla today, police said.

The blasts, along with bomb and mortar attacks in Baghdad that killed 11 people, underscored the challenges for the government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has pledged a US-backed crackdown in the lawless capital.

The new violence occurred as new figures showed civilian deaths rose to a record level in January.

The data from an Interior Ministry official, widely viewed as an indicative but only partial record of violent deaths, showed 1,971 people died from attacks in Iraq in January, slightly up from the previous high of 1,930 deaths in December.

The first suicide bomber in Hilla, a Shi'ite Muslim town 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, blew himself up when police tried to frisk him outside the central market, police said.

A second suicide bomber struck soon afterwards, they said.

A man strapped with explosives also blew himself up in a minibus in the religiously mixed Baghdad district of Karrada, wrecking the vehicle and killing six people and wounding 12.

A car bomb in Rusafi, one of Baghdad's biggest shopping districts, killed three people and wounded seven.

Police said 10 mortar bombs hit Adhamiya, a mainly Sunni Arab area in northwest Baghdad, killing two people and wounding nine.

Thousands of US troops are being sent to Baghdad to help Iraqi security forces in what is being widely seen as a final attempt to avert all-out sectarian civil war between Iraq's Shi'ite majority and Sunnis once dominant under Saddam Hussein.

IRAN ACCUSED In what has become almost daily US accusations of Iranian interference in Iraq, a senior US diplomat accused Tehran of supplying Iraqi Shi'ite militants with weapons technology used to kill US troops.

US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told US National Public Radio in an interview for broadcast on Thursday Washington had been tracking Iranian involvement in attacks for about two years and had found increasing evidence Iran had given assistance to Shi'ites in southern Iraq.

''We have picked up individuals who we believe are giving very sophisticated explosive technology to Shia insurgent groups who then use that technology to target and kill American soldiers,'' Burns said.

''It's a very serious situation. And the message from the United States is, Iran should cease and desist.'' Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, has vowed to tackle militants on both sides of the sectarian divide.

The prime minister has been criticised in the past for failing to confront militias tied to parties within his government, including some with ties to Iran.

The latest statistics on civilian deaths suggested no let up in violence since Maliki announced his plan for the security crackdown in Baghdad, the epicentre of violence in Iraq.

The Interior Ministry toll, provided to Reuters by a ministry source, refers to people killed in terrorism -- a category that may not include many of the dozens of unidentified bodies found daily in Baghdad, many the victims of sectarian death squads.

REUTERS SP VV2350