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By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two suicide car bombers struck within a minute of each other and a half-mile apart in southern Baghdad on Thursday, killing seven policemen and raising the day's death toll from blasts in the capital to at least 31, police said.

Earlier Thursday, the day's first suicide car bombing killed 16 policemen and five civilians in the same neighborhood, signaling a new round of violence one day after residents suffered through Baghdad's bloodiest day since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein — 160 dead and 570 wounded.

A roadside bomb struck a Ministry of Industry bus Thursday in eastern Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding 13, said police Lt. Col. Ahmed Abbod.

The U.S. military and Iraqi police drove through Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, where the bombings were concentrated, warning residents to stay indoors because five more car bombers were said to be ready to attack, police Capt. Ali Abdul Hamza said. Streets in the southern neighborhood were abandoned.

Al-Qaida in Iraq said it launched the attacks on both days.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad, said the insurgents had become desperate as Iraqis prepared to vote in an Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution.

"Remember, democracy equals failure for the insurgency. So there has to be heightened awareness now as we work our way toward the referendum. ...That's power, that's movement toward democracy," Lynch said at a briefing.

He opened the session on the first day after the extraordinary carnage in Baghdad by detailing improvements in Iraq's transportation system, saying: "I could devote the whole press conference to good news stories."

Al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly declared "all-out war" on Shiites, Iraqi troops and the government in an audiotape posted Wednesday on an Internet site known for carrying extremist Islamic content.

Iraqi Defense Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni, fired back during a news conference Thursday.

"We will not retreat or be silent. There will be no room for you in entire Iraq. We will chase you wherever you go," he said.

The massive bombings have taken place with both Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari in the United States. Talabani is scheduled to address the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and has met with President Bush. Both presidents agreed it was not yet time to discuss any withdrawal of the 140,000 U.S. forces now in Iraq.

U.S. forces and insurgents, meanwhile, reportedly clashed in the troubled western town of Ramadi, a militant stronghold on the main road to neighboring Jordan. A Web posting purportedly from Al-Qaida in Iraq said its forces had engaged the American military in the predominantly Sunni city of about 800,000.

Many of the 160 people killed in Wednesday were day laborers lured by a suicide attacker posing as an employer.

In its claim, Al-Qaida called it retaliation for the rout of militants from their base in Tal Afar, the northern city near the Syrian border.

Thursday's attacks in the capital began at 8 a.m. Four hours later, the twin bombing boomed out across Baghdad — one minute and a half-mile apart, said police Capt. Firas Gaiti said. He said at least seven policemen died and 10 were wounded.

In the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb next to a passing patrol, killing two police officers and wounding four, said Col. Anwar Hassan, head of the local security unit.

U.S. and Iraqi troops in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad, came under mortar attack Thursday morning as armed militants roamed the streets, police Capt. Nasir Alusi said.

All shops in the town were closed and the streets were empty as automatic gunfire echoed through the town's industrial zone, Alusi said.

Wednesday's spasm of violence terrorized the capital for more than nine hours. The first attack, at 6:30 a.m., was the deadliest: a suicide car blast which tore through the predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

In what was believed to be a new tactic, the bomber set off the explosive after calling the construction and other workers to his small van and enticing them with promises of employment, a witness said. At least 112 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded.

Iraqi forces arrested two insurgents in connection with the bombing, one of them a Palestinian and the other a Libyan, Iraqi TV quoted al-Jaafari as saying. He also said the suicide bomber was a Syrian, without offering any details how the identification was made so quickly.

Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a Web posting that it launched the attacks, some less than 10 minutes apart, in response to the Tal Afar offensive, which began Saturday.

"To the nation of Islam, we give you the good news that the battles of revenge for the Sunni people of Tal Afar began yesterday," said the statement, posted on a militant Web site. Its authenticity could not be confirmed.

The audiotape was posted later Wednesday. The speaker, introduced as al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, said his militant forces would attack any Iraqi they believe has cooperated with the Tal Afar offensive.

A spokesman for the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars condemned al-Zarqawi's threats, and said he was trying to foment civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.

"Zarqawi speaks from the position of revenge," Muhammed Bashar Faidi, a spokesman for the group, said on Al-Arabiya television. "This position by Zarqawi is aimed at provoking sectarian war (but) if he wants a war he should fight the occupation forces and not innocents."

In other violence Thursday:

• A gunfight between insurgents and paramilitary police broke out in Baghdad's southern Saydiya neighborhood, killing one policeman and wounding another, a spokesman said.

• Police found the bodies of seven unidentified men in various parts of the capital. All had their hands tied and were blindfolded.

• In northern Baghdad, police said they found the body of a policeman who had been handcuffed and shot in the head.

• In Baqouba, one policeman was killed and three injured in separate attacks by insurgents using mortars and small-arms fire.

• A police major was shot to death in Samarra, north of Baghdad, after being abducted by masked gunmen.