79 Die in Attacks as Rebels in Iraq Intensify Fight

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 11 - Insurgents struck in northern and central Iraq on Wednesday in a series of bloody attacks that killed at least 79 people in three cities, and wounded at least 120 others, according to figures provided by the police and hospital officials. The attacks were a further intensification of a two-week-old onslaught by Sunni Arab insurgents who appear intent on destabilizing Iraq's newly formed Shiite-majority government.

In the deadliest attack, at least 38 people were killed and more than 80 wounded when a bomber detonated his vehicle in the main street of Tikrit, the Sunni Arab hometown of Saddam Hussein, about 110 miles north of Baghdad.