BAGHDAD, 7 May 2005 — Suicide bombers killed at least 67 people in escalating violence in Iraq yesterday. Separately, at least a dozen bodies were found buried at a garbage dump on the outskirts of Baghdad, some of them blindfolded and shot in the head.

In the deadliest explosion, a suicide car bomber struck a vegetable market in a southern Iraqi town, killing at least 58 people and wounding 44. The attack was staged in the mostly Shiite town of Suwayra, 40 km south of Baghdad, reinforcing fears that guerrilla violence will fuel growing sectarian tensions and ignite a civil war.

In Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle beside a minibus carrying policemen, killing at least nine and wounding several. “A lion from the Martyrs’ Brigade attacked a group of the apostate police, who are agents of America, in the city of Tikrit... killing many, “ said a statement from Al-Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq on a website.

A series of bomb blasts and ambushes in Baghdad killed at least 24 people on Thursday. The previous day, a suicide bomb in the northern town of Arbil killed as many as 60 people, and a car bomb in Baghdad killed nine Iraqi soldiers.

The attacks were part of a surge of violence that has killed close to 300 people — many of them Iraqi soldiers and police — since Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced his new government on April 28 with seven Cabinet positions still undecided.

In Baghdad, scavengers sifting through garbage for scrap metal and other items to sell stumbled across the bodies of 14 men at the dump in Kasra Waatash, on the northeastern edge of Baghdad. The victims, believed to be Iraqis, were found in shallow graves and seemed to have been killed recently, Bassim Al-Maslokhi, a soldier who was guarding the area during the recovery, said. Some were blindfolded and had been shot in the head, he said.

Families identified some of the victims as farmers who disappeared recently on their way to a market to sell their produce, said Rahoumi Jassim, a morgue official.

Kadhim Al-Itabi, a local police chief, confirmed the victims had been shot. Mazin Fadhid, a policeman at the same station, said most appeared to be young men. Some were dressed in traditional white robes, others in pants and shirts, and at least one was wearing a traffic officer’s uniform, he said.

Meanwhile, kidnappers of an Australian man have demanded Australia begin withdrawing its troops from Iraq within 72 hours, according to a videotape of the hostage, Al-Jazeera television said.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said earlier yesterday that Douglas Wood, 63, was still alive as it emerged that an influential Sunni leader has pleaded with the militants holding him to spare his life.

The Qatar-based satellite channel also showed the video footage of six Jordanian contractors for the US military taken hostage. The six men held up their passports to the camera as they were paraded seated before a large black banner bearing the group’s name — the Al-Bara Bin Malek Jihad Brigades.

— Additional input from agencies