The Sunnis were dominant for decades under Saddam Hussein, but were mainly shut out of the new government announced Thursday. Some view the escalating violence since then as a response to political developments that the United States and the Shi'ite-dominated power structure had hoped would tamp down the bloodshed.
Despite the surge in violence, Iraq's national security adviser said yesterday that the fledgling government was making progress against the insurgents.
''There is no shadow of doubt in my mind that by the end of the year, we would have achieved a lot," Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said in an interview with CNN's ''Late Edition." ''Probably the back of the insurgency has already been broken."
Iraqi militants also released a video purporting to show the insurgents' latest foreign hostage, an Australian married to an American and living in the San Francisco area. Douglas Wood, 63, was shown seated between two masked militants pointing automatic weapons at him. His wife, Pearl, said she had seen the tape and the man being held was her husband. She said he had been in Iraq about 18 months, working as an engineer.
The car-bomb attack occurred in Tal Afar, 93 miles east of the Syrian border, the US military and a provincial official said. Mourners had gathered for the funeral of Sayed Talib Sayed Wahab, an official of the Kurdish Democratic Party, said deputy provincial governor and party spokesman Khusru Goran, speaking from nearby Mosul.
Goran said a car plowed into the funeral tent and exploded, but the US military said it was not a suicide attack. About 25 people were killed and more than 50 wounded, the US military said.
US troops, Iraqi police, and ambulances raced to the carnage, but unidentified gunmen blocked the road, and fighting broke out, Goran said.
At least six other car bombs, one of them a suicide attack, and five roadside explosions hit Baghdad yesterday, killing six Iraqis and wounding more than 20 civilians, six Iraqi police officers, and five US soldiers.
