By Abdul Rahman Dhaher
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed at least 13 people at a Baghdad market selling motorbikes and furniture Friday, the latest in a series of attacks that have intensified ahead of the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities.
One police source said as many as 19 people were killed after the bomb, planted on a motorcycle, exploded in the market in the industrial area of Bab al-Sheikh, a mixed but majority Shi'ite Muslim part of central Baghdad.
Forty-five people were wounded, police said.
Shredded shoes and bits of bloody clothing were scattered around the twisted frames of motorbikes. The blast site was swiftly sealed off by Iraqi soldiers and police.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned they expect the number of attacks to rise as U.S. combat troops leave Iraq's urban centres by June 30, a milestone in a bilateral pact that sets a deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by 2012.
A spate of bombings in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq has raised doubts about whether the Iraqi security forces can take over the fight against a stubborn insurgency.
Despite Friday's bombing and two others this week that killed 151 people, U.S. President Barack Obama said Iraq's security had continued to "dramatically improve," but that he had concerns about the political climate.
"I haven't seen as much political progress in Iraq -- negotiations between the Sunni, the Shia and the Kurds -- as I would like to see," Obama said in Washington. "So there ... will continue to be incidents of violence inside of Iraq for some time. They are at a much, much lower level than they were in the past."
He said if the government could settle differences on issues like boundaries and oil revenues, Iraq's security situation would improve further.
IRAQIS QUESTION THEIR FORCES
Iraqi police and army have had to be completely rebuilt since U.S. administrators disbanded the Iraqi forces after the U.S. invasion in 2003, a decision that left thousands of trained fighters unemployed and angry and fuelled an insurgency.
Despite assertions from the government the U.S. pullback represents a victory for Iraq as it regains its sovereignty, many Iraqis lack faith in their own forces.
Wednesday, 78 people were killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, just days after a truck bomb killed 73 people near the northern city of Kirkuk.
The attacks have prompted angry responses from Iraqis who blame local security forces for failing to protect them.
"I ask, what is the Iraqi government doing about these explosions?" said firebrand anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, many of whose supporters live in Sadr City. "The government is powerless to protect its people."
Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran and often blames the United States for Iraq's woes, said in a statement the blasts "carry the fingerprints of the occupation forces ... especially as they have occurred a few days before the withdrawal of the army of darkness."
He implored Iraqis to "shed the blood of the occupiers," not of each other.
Iraqi and U.S. officials say the attacks are aimed at reigniting the sectarian war that raged for years between once dominant Sunni Muslims and majority Shi'ites, who have gained supremacy since the fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
Violence is a far cry from what it was during the height of sectarian killing in 2006-2007, but Iraq's untested forces and fractious political class still face major security challenges.
Analysts say violence is likely to spike in the run-up to a parliamentary election next January.
The United States still has 130,000 troops in Iraq six years after the invasion, but the Obama administration is increasingly focussed on the war in Afghanistan.
(Writing by Missy Ryan and Michael Christie; Editing by Tim Cocks, Sophie Hares and Bill Trott)
