BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombings and shootings killed up to 58 people in Iraq on Tuesday, including at least 26 soldiers, undermining the new government's attempts to show it can suppress the unremitting violence.
A roadside bomb attack on a bus filled with Iraqi troops on a road between Tikrit and Baiji, north of Baghdad, killed at least 23, the army said.
In the northwestern town of Tal Afar, a car bomb killed three more Iraqi soldiers and wounded four, police said.
A British soldier was killed in a mortar attack on an army base in the southern city of Basra, a British military spokesman said.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber in a car targeted soldiers collecting their salaries from a bank, killing at least 10 people, including an elderly woman, police said. State television put the toll at 14.
The blast was in the same spot in Karrada district where a car bomb and mortars killed at least 27 people last week.
"We should carry guns to protect ourselves. If we expect Iraqi security forces to protect us we will burn, just like those innocent people," said kiosk owner Abu Fadhil, surveying charred bodies.
"The government is useless. Only days ago we suffered from a huge blast here. The interior minister has to admit they lost the war against the terrorists."
