DEADLY bomb attacks erupted around Iraq yesterday, killing 46 people, a day after a security conference that saw the United States and Iran spar in a rare encounter between the arch-foes.

U.S. forces said they rounded up 15 “suspected terrorists” in various raids in central Iraq, but still the carnage continued, with insurgents targeting Shiite pilgrims, laborers and the offices of a mainstream Sunni political party.

A car bomb attack on Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad’s downtown Karrada district killed 19 devotees and wounded 10 more as they returned from Karbala, which on Saturday hosted several million pilgrims for the festival of Arbaeen.

In another attack, five construction workers were killed and 10 wounded when their bus hit a roadside bomb near Baladruz, 100 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.

Further north in Mosul, a bomb ripped through the office of the Islamic Party, killing four people, said police Brigadier General Mohammed al-Wagga.

Elsewhere in Iraq eight more were killed.

Such apparently sectarian attacks, which have claimed tens of thousands of lives, were the focus of Saturday’s summit in Baghdad, attended by Iraq’s neighbors and officials from the five permanent U.N. Security Council members.

Aside from a bland pledge to “fight terrorism and enhance security,” the parties remained far apart, with the United States delegation accusing Iran of arms smuggling and Tehran demanding a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he spoke with the Iranian envoy for a few minutes at the opening of the conference.

While there were no “substantive” direct talks, Khalilzad said he raised U.S. allegations that Iran was supplying arms and other support to Iraqi militias.

Tehran blamed Iraq violence on the U.S. troops deployed in their tens of thousands in Iraq and still being expanded.

“For the sake of peace and stability in Iraq we need a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters.

“They have made so many mistakes in Iraq because of false intelligence. We hope they don’t repeat their previous mistakes,” he added.

(SD-Agencies)