BAGHDAD

Wave of bombings leaves at least 26 people dead

A series of coordinated bombings shattered Shiite neighborhoods and struck at Iraqi security forces Sunday, killing at least 26 in attacks that one official described as a rallying call by al-Qaida just days after dozens of militants escaped from prison.

The blasts brought September’s death toll from sectarian violence to nearly 200 people — an above-average monthly total for the period since U.S. troops left last year. The steady pace of attacks has worked to undermine confidence in the government.

Police said the wave of explosions stretched from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the north to the southern Shiite town of Kut.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but bombings are a hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency that has been struggling to goad Shiite militias back toward civil war.

A key Shiite lawmaker said the bombings likely sought to galvanize al-Qaida in the wake of a prison break last Friday in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. Scores of inmates escaped, including as many as 47 convicted al-Qaida militants.

Spokesmen for the government and Baghdad’s military command could not be reached for comment.

CARACAS, Venezuela

Country’s leader declares he would vote for Obama

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has weighed in on the U.S. presidential race, saying he prefers President Obama.

“If I were American, I’d vote for Obama,” Chavez told the Venezuelan television channel Televen in an interview that aired Sunday.

Calling Obama “a good guy,” he said if the U.S. president were a Venezuelan, “I think … he’d vote for Chavez.”

Chavez is seeking another six years in office in an Oct. 7 vote. Obama faces Republican Mitt Romney in his November re-election bid.

Venezuela has had tense relations with the U.S. government for years, though the United States remains the top buyer of oil from the country.

“I wish we could begin a new period of normal relations with the government of the United States,” Chavez said in the interview.

The U.S. Embassy in Caracas has been without an ambassador since July 2010, with Chavez rejecting Washington’s nominee for ambassador, Larry Palmer, and accusing him of making disrespectful remarks about Venezuela’s government. That led Washington to revoke the visa of the Venezuelan envoy to the U.S.

BEIRUT

Suicide blast kills at least four at Syrian compound

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a Syrian security compound in a remote, predominantly Kurdish northeastern town Sunday, killing at least four people, state media said, in a new sign that Syria’s largest ethnic minority might be drawn into a widening civil war.

Opposition activists said at least eight Syrian intelligence agents were killed in the attack in Qamishli, more than 435 miles from the capital, Damascus.

Syria’s more than 2 million Kurds, long marginalized, have largely stayed out of the fighting, but some have participated in protests against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

The uprising against Assad that erupted 18 months ago has morphed into a civil war. The conflict has killed more than 30,000 people, activists say.

WASHINGTON

Ryan: Explaining tax plan math too time-consuming

Paul Ryan says it would take too long to explain the numbers behind the tax plan that he and Mitt Romney are proposing.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee said he and Romney want a 20 percent cut in all income tax rates. He said they’d pay for those cuts by closing loopholes and deductions.

President Obama and Democrats have hammered Romney and Ryan for refusing to say until after the election which tax loopholes they would close.

Ryan told “Fox News Sunday” that “it would take me too long to go through all the math.”

Ryan said he and Romney would start by closing loopholes for higher-income Americans.