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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber killed 17 Shiites at a teeming Sadr City market Wednesday, while gunmen in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad shot up a convoy of democracy workers in an ambush that took the lives of an American woman and three bodyguards.

People stand by a car destroyed in a car bomb blast in Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday Jan. 17, 2007. [AP]

The attack on the marketplace came one day after car bombings killed scores of university students just two miles away, indicating that al-Qaida-linked fighters are bent on a surge of bloodshed as US and Iraqi forces gear up for a fresh neighborhood-by-neighborhood security sweep through the capital.

Although nobody claimed responsibility for either day's car bombings, such attacks are the hallmark of Sunni militants, who appear to be taking advantage of a waiting period before the security crackdown to step up attacks on Shiites. There had been a relative lull in Baghdad violence since the first of the year.

An Iraqi army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said the attack on the Western convoy took place in Yarmouk, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad.

The three-car convoy belonged to the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, according to Les Campbell, the not-for-profit group's Middle East director. He said the four dead included an American woman along with three security contractors - a Hungarian, a Croatian and an Iraqi. Two others were wounded, one seriously, Campbell said by telephone from Washington. Their names were withheld until their families could be notified.

"It appeared to be an attack with fairly heavy weapons, we don't know what kind," Campbell said. "We have some information that a firefight ensued. Our security company responded to the attack."

Campbell said the ambush took place at midday as the group returned from a program elsewhere in Baghdad.

Few foreigners and even fewer women have been caught up in Iraq's recent wave of violence as many Western groups have left and those who remain have tightened security and curtailed their movements after a series of kidnappings and beheadings. The last known American female civilian to be killed was Marla Ruzicka, a 28-year-old rights activist from California who died in a car bombing in April 2005.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not give a start date when he announced plans for a new drive to tame the violent capital - the third attempt since he took office May 20. But US and Iraqi reinforcements have started to arrive in Baghdad, and it was expected to begin in about two weeks.

The marketplace explosion took place just before 4 p.m. near a popular commercial area in Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite district of some 2.5 million people in eastern Baghdad.

The blast shattered the windows of nearby shops and restaurants, and blood pooled in the street. Angry Iraqis surrounded the charred mass of twisted metal, all that was left of the explosives-packed car. They tipped the remains on its side and picked off pieces of blackened upholstery.

At least 17 people were killed and 33 people were wounded, police said.

In many parts of the capital, streets were crowded with cars and minivans carrying wooden caskets of the victims from Tuesday's car bombings, which killed at least 70 people and wounded more than 130 at Al-Mustansiriya University. Many vehicles were headed to the holy city of Najaf where Shiites prefer to bury their dead. Other victims were taken to a Sunni cemetery in central Baghdad. The students were from all the country's religious sects.

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