Central Baghdad car bombs kill at least 10 - police

BAGHDAD, July 23 (Reuters) At least 10 people were killed, including two Iraqi policemen, and 15 wounded in two separate car bombings in different areas of Baghdad's central Karrada district today, police said.

The two bombs detonated almost simultaneously. One went off near a government office in Karrada which issues identity cards to Iraqis. The office is near one of the main bridges leading across the Tigris river to the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Police said the bomb near the identity card office went off as a police patrol passed by. Another three police were among the wounded, they said.

Television pictures showed a line of burning cars in a narrow street as residents and shoppers ran for cover.

The second bomb exploded in a busy shopping area in predominantly Shi'ite Karrada. No other details of that incident were immediately available.

The US military began a security crackdown in Baghdad five months ago in an attempt to stem bombings, many of them blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, and sectarian killings between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

US and Iraqi forces later launched another big operation in mid-June in areas around Baghdad after the crackdown in the capital forced al Qaeda fighters and insurgents out of the capital into surrounding provinces.

The security operations coincided with the arrival of 28,000 extra US troops as US and Iraqi forces attempt to give the government breathing space to pass a series of political benchmarks set by Washington aimed at promoting national reconciliation.

REUTERS SKB SSC1346