Two car bombs kill 18, wound 102 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Feb 5 (Reuters) Two car bombs in separate neighbourhoods in Baghdad killed 18 people and wounded 102 today, police said.

In the worst blast, a car bomb targeting a petrol station in the religiously mixed neighbourhood of Saidiya in southern Baghdad killed 10 people and wounded 62.

The second blast in a vehicle workshop in central Baghdad killed eight people and wounded 40, police said.

The fresh violence comes as U S and Iraqi security forces prepare to launch a much-anticipated crackdown in the capital, seen as a last-ditch effort to quell soaring sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and once dominant Sunni Arabs.

On Saturday, a suicide truck bomb killed 135 people in a Shi'ite area of Baghdad in the worst single bombing since the U S-led 2003 invasion.

REUTERS DKA RN1627