IRAQ - May 23 - Wave Of Sectarian Violence Leaves 41 Dead Across Iraq.

A bomb planted in a motorcycle parked in the courtyard of a Shiite mosque kills 11 people and wounds nine, part of mostly sectarian violence across Iraq that left 41 dead. The mosque attack comes in the mixed Tunis neighbourhood of northern Baghdad near the Sunni Arab stronghold of Azamiya. The Interior Ministry said it occurred a couple of hours before the capital's 11 p.m. curfew. An hour later, the police said a roadside bomb exploded outside a bakery in south-east Baghdad, killing three bystanders and wounding 12. The deaths came a day after the new PM, Nuri al-Maliki, and Britain's visiting leader, Tony Blair, announced that Iraqi security forces would start assuming full responsibility for some provinces and cities next month, beginning a process that could lead to the eventual withdrawal of all coalition forces. But some of the violence showed that that goal might not be easy to achieve. A car bomb was detonated in the late afternoon outside a police station in Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite district in north-east Baghdad, killing five and woundng 16, Lt Col Falah al-Mohamedawi of the Interior Ministry said. Earlier, gunmen in a car shot and killed four ironsmiths and wounded one as they rode to work in Mosul in a pickup truck, said Brigadier Abdul- Hamid Khalaf of the police. In a drive-by shooting, attackers killed three day labourers and wounded four as they drove by a minibus to work at a farm near Baquba, 55kms, north-east of Baghdad. The police said the casualties, all majority Shiites, appeared to be the latest victims of sectarian attacks by minority Sunni Arabs in Diyala Province. Several hours later, gunmen in a speeding car killed three men standing near a house in Baquba, the police said. Nazar Qadir, 39, a high school teacher on his way to work near Kirkuk city in Tameem Province, about 290kms north of Baghdad, also was killed in a drive-by shooting. On Jan. 31, a US Embassy report had found security "critical" in the Anbar Province, the Sunni-dominated region west of Baghdad that includes Ramadi and Falluja. It also said the security situation was considered serious in the provinces of Baghdad, Basra, Nineveh, Tameem, Salahuddin and Diyala - all religiously mixed. A car bomb exploded in New Baghdad, an eastern suburb, killing two police commandos and three civilians. The attack, which damaged nearby shops and cars, also wounded five commandos and three civilians. A roadside bomb hit a minibus carrying workers to a textile factory in western Baghdad, killing one and wounding three others, said 1st Lt Maithem Abdel-Razaq of the police. In western Baghdad, a drive-by shooting killed one of the vendors who sell cigarettes from wooden stands alongside streets in the capital. A roadside bomb also damaged a Humvee in a US convoy in Dora, one of Baghdad's most violent areas, and a woman and a child were wounded in gunfire that followed. A mortar shell landed near the heavily fortified Green Zone, wounding four civilians and damaging three cars, the police said.