BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Nine people were killed in bomb blasts in central Baghdad and mortars rained down on a Sunni neighborhood on Thursday as new figures showed that Iraqi civilians deaths edged up to another record in January.

The data from an Interior Ministry official, widely viewed as an indicative but only partial record of violent deaths, showed 1,971 people died from "terrorism" in        Iraq in January, slightly up from the previous high of 1,930 deaths in December.

In what has become almost daily criticism of what Washington sees as Iranian interference in Iraq, a senior U.S. diplomat accused Tehran of supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons technology used to kill American troops.