Deadly car bomb mutes Iraqi celebrations

Reporting from Baghdad and Kirkuk, Iraq — Iraqi troops had paraded in the street and waved the Iraqi flag in celebration of taking control of their cities from U.S. troops. But within hours, militants today mounted their first challenge to Iraq's new era with a car bombing that claimed the lives of at least 20 people and wounded 40 others in northern Iraq.

The parked car exploded at a vegetable market in the late afternoon in Shoraja, a Kurdish section of Kirkuk, said police Maj. Salam Abdullah, who provided the casualty figures.

The attack came barely at a week after nearly 80 people were killed in a suicide truck bomb in Taza Khurmatu, a Shiite Turkmen town just south of the city. Both blasts pointed to a deliberate effort to fan the ethnic tensions in an oil-rich area that Kurds wish to claim as part of their self-governing region in northern Iraq and Arabs want tied to the central government in Baghdad.

The blast marred a day that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki had hailed as a historic victory and the first milestone on the way to the withdrawal of all U.S. forces by the end of 2011. President Obama says he wants all combat troops home from Iraq by the end of August next year.

Iraqis commemorated the day with military parades in cities across Iraq as their soldiers took over full responsibility from the U.S. forces, who have been relegated mostly to bases on the periphery of cities or to rural areas, only to be called upon when summoned by the Iraqi government and its commanders. A U.S.-Iraq security agreement, signed at the end of last year, had called for all American combat troops to be out of population centers by June 30.

"This day, which we consider a national celebration, is an achievement made by all Iraqis," Maliki told the nation in an address on state television.

"Our incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops is the most serious legacy we have inherited [from former leader Saddam Hussein]. Those who think that Iraqis are unable to defend their country are committing a fatal mistake."

In other developments, the U.S. military announced the death of four soldiers in Baghdad, killed in action on Monday, but provided no further information on the attack.

ned.parker@latimes.com

Times staff writer Saif Hameed contributed to this report.