A car bomb in northern Iraq killed at least 15 people, including children, on Wednesday. In the south, U.S.-led forces handed control of a province to the Iraqi government, according to the Associated Press. Ninety people were injured in the blast near a popular market in Tal Afar, said a police official who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. Seven of the dead were children. Later, the U.S. military put the number of injured at 98 and said all were civilians except for three Iraqi security personnel. Tal Afar, a one-time stronghold of Sunni insurgents, has been the scene of numerous attacks as well as campaigns by U.S. and Iraqi troops that led American leaders to describe it as a success story in efforts to stabilize Iraq. But sporadic attacks _ some of them linked to sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shiites _ continue in the city, 260 miles (420 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad. South of Baghdad, the transfer of the mostly Shiite province of Qadisiyah reflected a drop in violence and marked another success for Iraq's increasingly assertive government, which seeks a timeline from the United States for the withdrawal of American forces. Qadisiyah was the 10th of 18 provinces to fall under Iraqi authority after U.S. and Polish forces relinquished control in a ceremony. «This is further evidence of our goal to have security control in the whole of Iraq by the end of 2008,» said Mouwafak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser. In a statement, U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said Iraqi security forces there had been operating «independently» for the last two months. «We will assist as requested,» they said. The statement said the Iraqi provincial and military leadership would have to create long-term security that can lead to economic development.
