IRAQIS CELEBRATE U.S. PULLBACK, BUT 33 KILLED BY CAR BOMBING

It ain't over until it's over and it is FAR from over in Iraq. U.S. forces may have pulled back from key Iraqi cities, but all the earmarks are this is an invitation to terrorists and insurgents to launch their attacks on Iraqi citizens.

Iraqis celebrate US pullback but bombing kills 33

HAMZA HENDAWI Associated Press Writer Posted: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 2:35 pm

SOURCE: http://tinyurl.com/ldu257

BAGHDAD - Not a single American soldier was in sight. Gone, too, were the American helicopters whose buzz has for years defined Baghdad's background track.

Left alone to protect the capital Tuesday were thousands of Iraqi troops and police manning checkpoints, with army tanks deployed at potential trouble spots and convoys of pickup trucks with machine guns roaming the streets.

But it was elsewhere, 180 miles (290 kilometers) to the north, that militants delivered their first deadly challenge to Iraq's security forces on a highly symbolic day after the formal withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from cities at midnight.

A car bombing devastated a food market in the city of Kirkuk, killing at least 33 people and wounding 90. The early evening attack, which bore the hallmarks of Sunni extremist groups like al-Qaida in Iraq, was the second in the Kirkuk area since a truck bombing killed 82 people on June 20.

The latest blast was a deadly example of the violence many Iraqis fear will increase with the departure of U.S. troops from urban areas, despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's confidence in Iraq's nascent security forces.

The bombing came hours after the U.S. military announced that four American soldiers were killed in combat Monday. It was the deadliest attack on U.S. forces since May 21, when three soldiers were killed and nine wounded in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.