Bomb attacks in Baghdad that killed 17 people aimed to destabilize Iraq before provincial elections, which are central to the nation’s process of reconciliation, the United Nations said.

Increasing violence in the Iraqi capital aims to “undermine efforts to increase the country’s fragile stability,” UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said in a statement.
One of Monday’s blasts was caused by the remote- controlled detonation of explosives strapped to a mentally disabled woman outside the entrance to Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, Agence France-Presse reported. In another, a roadside bomb exploded near a bus carrying Trade Ministry employees, incinerating most of the victims in the vehicle, it said.
Dozens of people have been killed in suicide bombings in Baghdad this month and the UN says the Jan. 31 ballot, in which Iraqis will elect provincial councils, may trigger more attacks. Lawmakers are scheduled to vote tomorrow on a security accord that would see all U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.
The so-called Status of Forces Agreement would extend the period U.S. forces can stay in Iraq after a UN mandate authorizing their presence expires Dec. 31.
Iraqi leaders are divided over when American soldiers should leave.
Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his supporters oppose the security accord and say the 152,000 U.S. personnel stationed in the country should depart immediately. Others, including National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, favor President-elect Barack Obama’s timetable to withdraw the troops within 16 months of taking office in January.
Iraq’s 275-seat Parliament comprises more than 10 political parties and alliances arranged along ethnic and religious lines. At least 138 lawmakers must vote for the accord for it to be approved.
In the first attack Monday, 13 people were killed, nine of them women, in the roadside bombing of the bus during rush-hour traffic in east Baghdad, AFP said, citing a medical official. Five others were wounded, according to the news agency.
Less than an hour later, the woman strapped with bombs blew up in a corridor leading to the Green Zone that houses Iraq’s parliament, several government offices and foreign embassies.
Dozens of Iraqis were queuing to pass through security checks at the time of the blast and three were killed with 15 others wounded, AFP reported.
“There are no moral or political excuses that could possibly justify the deliberate targeting of innocent citizens,” de Mistura said in the statement.
Also in eastern Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed a civilian and wounded five people, including three policemen, AFP reported.
(Source: Bloomberg)