A car bomb left this Baghdad building partially charred in one of Tuesday's attacks. Despite the rising violence, President Bush downplayed the threat of an Iraqi civil war.

Khalid Mohammed / The Associated Press

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BAGHDAD — The day's violence started with attacks on three Sunni mosques. But as night fell, three Shiite holy places had come under attack in what appeared to be a tit-for-tat exchange of sectarian clashes. At least 68 people were dead.

The surge of violence Tuesday deepened the trauma of residents already shaken by fears the country was teetering on the brink of sectarian civil war, threatened talks among Iraqi politicians struggling to form a government and raised questions about U.S. plans to begin drawing down troop strength this summer.

In the south Tuesday, two British soldiers were killed in Amarah, 180 miles from Baghdad, the Defense Ministry reported in London, but gave no other details. A witness said a car bomb targeted a British patrol and helicopters were seen taking away casualties.

The U.S. military reported that a U.S. soldier was killed by small-arms fire west of Baghdad on Monday. No details were provided.

At least six of the attacks hit clearly religious targets, concluding with a car bombing after sundown at the Shiite Abdel Hadi Chalabi mosque in the Hurriyah neighborhood that killed 23 and wounded 55. Another suicide bombing killed 23 people at an east Baghdad gas station, where people had lined up to buy kerosene.

In addition to those known to have been killed Tuesday, police found nine more bullet-riddled bodies, including a Sunni Muslim tribal sheik, off a road southeast of Baghdad. It was unclear when they died.

President Bush said the wave of violence in Iraq sparked by the bombing of a sacred Shiite mosque last week doesn't mean a civil war is imminent.

"I don't buy your premise that there's going to be a civil war," Bush said, responding to a question in an interview with ABC News. "There's no question that the bomber of the mosque is trying to create sectarian violence, and there's no question there was reaction to it."

Bush said the Iraqi leaders he talked with during the weekend realize that now is the time for unity.

The sectarian violence has hit Baghdad hardest because the population in the capital is about evenly divided between Shiites and Sunnis, more so than in any other region of the country.

In an unusual move, the government issued a statement declaring that 379 people had been killed and 458 wounded as of 4 p.m. Tuesday in the sectarian violence tied to the Askariya bombing.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that more than 1,300 people were killed in the reprisal attacks. The Cabinet statement, however, said "what was reported in a foreign newspaper were inaccurate and exaggerated numbers of victims."

Saddam's trial goes on

Meanwhile, prosecutors presented documents Tuesday they said show Saddam Hussein approved executions of more than 140 Shiites in the 1980s, the most direct evidence yet against the former Iraqi leader in his four-month trial. Among those sentenced to hang was an 11-year-old boy.

The most significant document featured a signature said to be Saddam's on a court list of people to be executed, though it was not clear he was aware of their ages. The list on that particular document had only names. About 50 of those sentenced died during interrogation before they could go to the gallows. One man, his brother and two sons were executed by mistake, and Saddam allegedly ordered them declared "martyrs" to cover up the error.