BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Rocket and mortars...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Rocket and mortars rained down Thursday onward an upscale, mostly Shiite area of Baghdad, collapsing an apartment house, shattering workshops and killing at least 31 family -- part of the rising sectarian violence President Bush has vowed to stop.

A car bomb also explod during the attack in the commercial- residential district of Karradah, an area that is to one's home to several prominent Shiite politicians.

More than 150 clan were wounded in the blasts, police said.

Horrified survivors milled about the road hours later, surveying the damage and blaming Sunnis from neighborhoods across the Tigris River.

"We are not infidels. It looks that we are not level safe in our homes," said united man, who, like others forward the street, refused to give his name because he was afraid.

A statement officeed late Thursday on an Islamist Web site claimed responsibility in the name of the al-Sahaba Soldiers, a part of the Sunni extremist Mujahedeen Shura Council which also includes al- Qaida in Iraq.

The statement, whose authenticity could not be determined, said the attack was "in rejoinder to Shiite crimes" and warned "we are prepared for many like operations" to punish Shiites for supporting the "crusaders," or Americans, and the "treacherous" Iraqi sway

AREA HAD BEEN GENERALLY SAFE

The blasts transformed a normally bustling, generally safe area of Baghdad into a exhibition from a war zone. Rescuer hauled a blood- soaked male child who appeared no more than 10 from the foundered apartment building.

A woman make straighted in black sank to the way weeping uncontrollably, when neighbors told her sum of two units of her sons were dead. Dazed survivors, near bleeding from their wounds, tried to help each other gain medical aid.

Charred broken and dismasted vessels of trucks lay on their sides in the blackened road One detonation occurred about 600 feet from the place of abode of Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a senior figure in the superlative Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Instead of sending U soldiers family Gen. George W. Casey Jr the top U commander in Iraq, is drawing up plans to deposit large numbers of American squads in Baghdad's streets to shore up the US- trained Iraqi security force.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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