Meanwhile

In the forgotten war:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 13 — As American forces conducted a new security sweep in western Baghdad on Sunday, five apparently coordinated bombings in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood on the city’s south side killed at least 57 people and wounded 148, an Iraqi government official said.

The death toll could rise, the official said, as emergency workers searched for victims in the rubble of an apartment building that collapsed as a result of the bombings.

The attacks, which killed civilians in a largely residential neighborhood, were the deadliest in the capital since the American military dispatched new forces here more than a week ago to quell a surge in killings and kidnappings by sectarian militias and criminal gangs.

Also Sunday, American and Iraqi soldiers searching for people who had been kidnapped raided Iraq’s Health Ministry early in the morning and arrested five bodyguards, military and government officials said.