Bombs kill 65 at Baghdad university

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Scores of people were killed in Baghdad on Tuesday in bombing and shooting incidents, most of them in neighborhoods where the militia of a powerful anti-American Shiite cleric holds sway.

A suicide bomber and a car bomb killed at least 65 people and wounded 138 more at entrances to a once-prestigious university in Baghdad.

The strike at Mustansiriya University was a dual bomb attack: The suicide bomber detonated a vest at the back entrance of the school, and a parked car exploded at the main gate under a pedestrian bridge where students and employees get public transit. (Watch aftermath of 'massive' bombing )

A CNN producer near the scene said police sealed off the area and there were armed members of the Mehdi Army -- the militia under the control of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- on the street.

Ambulances and police cars were carrying out the wounded.

The university, in northeastern Baghdad, is at the tip of Sadr City, a Shiite neighborhood where there is much support for al-Sadr. It is considered to be a Mehdi militia stronghold.

Meanwhile, gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a marketplace in the Mehdi Army-controlled Bunouk area of eastern Baghdad and killed 12 civilians. Seven others were wounded.

In the Sadr City neighborhood, a bomb left inside a minivan detonated, killing four people and wounding 10 others, the official said. The blast occurred 100 to 200 meters away from al-Sadr's main office.

There were two deadly incidents in central Baghdad.

A bomb exploded near a police convoy along a main road in central Baghdad, the official said. When police and others responded to that blast, a second bomb exploded nearby. At least 15 people were killed and 70 wounded by the two bombs, the official said.

About two hours before that incident, two police officers who helped defuse a car bomb in central Baghdad's Karrada section were killed when another bomb hidden nearby exploded, the official said. Two civilians were also killed in the blast, and 10 people, including three policemen, were wounded, the official said.

The peak in violence came on the same day as the release of a United Nations report that said more than 34,000 civilians were "violently killed" across Iraq last year. (Full story)

University under influence of radical Shiites

Mustansiriya University -- an ancient university with relatively modern buildings -- had been visited by Paul Bremer, once the top U.S. civilian official in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The school, which emphasizes law and literature, was singled out as an example of the kind of institution that would need to thrive in the post-Saddam Hussein era.

However, students have come under the influence of al-Sadr militias over the past year. Sunni professors have left the school because of the influence of radical Shiites.

The U.S.-led military is hoping that al-Sadr's fellow Shiite -- Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki -- has the political will to crack down on al-Sadr and his militia, which is thought to be in the middle of the Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife across Baghdad.

Boycott by al-Sadr loyalists reportedly ending

Cabinet ministers and legislators loyal to al-Sadr were instructed to end their six-week boycott of the political process, a parliamentarian in the political bloc told The Associated Press on Tuesday, indicating that the decision was linked to a major security operation to be launched by the Iraqi government and U.S. forces. (Watch U.S. troops go door to door in Baghdad neighborhood )

"We might be subjected to an attack and we should try [to] solve the problem politically. We should not give a chance for a military strike against us," the legislator told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public.

The lawmaker said the group's return was conditional, including demands that the government set up a committee to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and a second that would set a date by which Iraqi forces were to take control of security nationwide, AP reported.

Other developments

The Defense Ministry on Tuesday said the army "conducted a quick and surprise operation in southern Baghdad" over the past 24 hours, raiding insurgent hideouts and seizing weaponry. Ninety-two people described by authorities as "terrorists, including 40 wanted," were detained.

A journalist who saw videotape of the Monday hangings of Saddam Hussein's half-brother and the dictator's former chief judge has described how one of the men was decapitated. New York Times reporter John F. Burns told CNN that Barzan Hassan's head "just snapped off," because he was apparently given too much rope and fell too far -- about eight feet -- for a man of his medium build and weight.