At least 46 killed in Iraq violence

By Paul Tait

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 46 people were killed in a surge in violence across Iraq on Tuesday, including a roadside bomb attack on a bus carrying mourners and day-long clashes between gunmen and U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

Violence had fallen across Iraq by 60 percent since last June, but Tuesday's attacks underlined how fragile the security gains are.

In the southern city of Kut, members of anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army fought U.S. special forces and Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. warplanes in clashes in which 14 people died, security officials said.

Police at the general hospital in Nassiriya, 375 km (235 miles) south of Baghdad, said the casualties from the roadside bomb attack on a bus included women and children. Survivors said the bomb appeared to target a passing U.S. military convoy.

Police said the bus was carrying members of a family returning from mourning rites for a dead relative in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf when it was hit about 60 km (40 miles) south of Nassiriya.

"There was blood and human flesh in the bus and on the floor. Shoes of men, women and children were everywhere," bus driver Zaji Abdul Hussein told Reuters.

Rahman Shaker, 60, covered in blood after carrying his badly wounded wife from the wreckage, said a U.S. convoy had just passed on the other side of the road when the bomb went off.

"I saw my wife covered in blood and took her out of the bus," Shaker said. "There were bodies covered in bloody blankets, and people screaming."