Suicide Truck Bomber Kills 18 in Baghdad
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- Date: 24 Mar 2007 18:26:06 GMT
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Suicide Truck Bomber Kills 18 in Baghdad
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
AP - Mar 24, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=NYTRO&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Suicide Truck Bomber Kills 18 in Baghdad
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide truck bomber struck a police station in a
mainly Sunni area in Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 18 people,
police said, as insurgents apparently step up their campaign against
fellow Sunnis seen as collaborating with the U.S. and the Iraqi
government.
Northwest of the capital, in the predominantly Sunni Turkomen city of
Tal Afar, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt struck a pastry
shop, killing at least 10 people and wounding three, said the city's
top administrator, Najim Abdullah said. The attack came just over a
year after President Bush cited Tal Afar as an example of progress made
in bringing security to Iraq.
The blast in Baghdad, which could be heard across the city and sent up
a plume of black smoke over the skyline, came a day after Deputy Prime
Minister Salam al-Zubaie was seriously wounded in a suicide bombing
during prayers at his home in Baghdad. Nine other people were killed,
including al-Zubaie's brother and an aide.
Al-Zubaie was in stable condition and moved out of the intensive care
unit Saturday morning, but he remained under anaesthesia at a U.S.-run
hospital in the heavily guarded Green Zone, Sunni lawmaker Dhafer
al-Ani said.
Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a military spokesman, said he had
visited al-Zubaie in the hospital and found him in good condition.
"The medical situation of Dr. al-Zubaie is stable after he had a
surgical operation to remove shrapnel from his lungs," al-Moussawi told
state-run Iraqiya television.
The attacks in Baghdad appeared to signal a renewed focus by insurgents
targeting Iraqi security forces, politicians and tribes perceived as
cooperating with the U.S.-Iraqi efforts. The bomber attacked al-Zubaie
a day after a statement purportedly posted on the Internet by an
al-Qaida umbrella group singled him out as a stooge "to the crusader
occupiers."
The Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni parliamentary bloc
to which al-Zubaie belonged, said attacks will not force Sunnis to
abandon the political process.
"Whether al-Qaida or other organizations were behind such attacks, this
will not force us to abandon our principles and firm stances in moving
ahead with the political process," said Sunni lawmaker Amil al-Qadhi.
The U.S. military announced the death Friday of an American soldier
killed by a roadside bomb while on a foot patrol south of Baghdad.
Another U.S. soldier was killed in fighting in Anbar, the military said.
The suicide bomber targeting police on Saturday in the volatile Sunni
neighborhood of Dora managed to bypass tight security to get within 25
yards of the station by hiding the explosives under a load of bricks,
detonating them after being stopped by a long barricade guarded by
policemen and surrounded by concrete blast walls, said Police Cpl.
Hussam Ali, who witnessed the blast from a nearby guard post.
Ali said there was construction work being done inside the station and
trucks had been coming in and out all day.
The force of the blast caused part of the blue and white, two-story
building to collapse, including the ceiling of a room where some
detainees were being held, police said. Those killed included five
policemen and 13 civilians, including some detainees, while 15 officers
and 11 civilians were wounded, according to the authorities.
"We were very cautious, but this time we were taken by surprise," Ali
said. "The insurgents are inventing new methods to hurt us."
The 10:45 a.m. explosion occurred nearly three hours after two mortar
shells landed on a Shiite enclave elsewhere in Dora, killing three
people and wounding seven, police said.
Gunmen also ambushed an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad's western
Sunni neighborhood of Jami'a, killing a soldier and wounding two
others, police said, adding that a militant also was killed in
subsequent clashes.
The Islamic State in Iraq claimed responsibility for the bombing
against al-Zubaie in which the bomber detonated an explosives vest
after weekly prayers in a small mosque attached to al-Zubaie's home
near the Foreign Ministry, just north of the capital's heavily guarded
Green Zone.
The Iraqi military spokesman al-Moussawi called the sucide bombing an
inside job, telling state television that an al-Qaida fighter had
infiltrated al-Zubaie's security detachment, but he offered no details
and repeated calls to his office to verify the claim went unanswered.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees Iraq's police forces, said it had
no information on that claim.
Al-Maliki aide Mariam Taleb al-Rayes also told al-Sharqiyah television
the attacker had "infiltrated" al-Zubaie's inner circle, but did not
elaborate. She added that the bomber's car blew up outside the house
seconds after he detonated his explosives vest.
Al-Zubaie's loss would be a blow to the government, but the al-Maliki
administration would not be derailed. There is no legal requirement the
post be filled by a Sunni Arab - only an informal agreement among the
political parties that formed the current government, and leaders would
likely be able to find another Sunni if necessary.
The White House condemned the attack, and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad promised the United States would work with the Iraqi
government and security forces to capture those behind it.
Hundreds of Iraqis also turned out in the southern city of Basra for
the funeral of al-Zubaie's regional aide, Mufid Abdul Zahraa, who was
killed in the attack.
The deputy prime minister belongs to a tribe that is centered in Abu
Ghraib, west of Baghdad, and has been divided between members who
support al-Qaida and others who have joined an alliance that has been
created to fight the insurgents in Anbar province, which stretches to
the borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
If the Islamic State in Iraq, an organization linking al-Qaida in Iraq
and several other Sunni extremist groups, was responsible for the
attack, that might signal a growing concern within al-Qaida about
recent success by U.S. troops in Anbar.
"This terrorist organization is trying to compensate for its big
defeats in Anbar by attacking al-Zubaie, who is an outspoken critic of
the terrorists," said Tariq al-Dulaimi, a senior security official in
Ramadi.
Al-Zubaie is among a long list of politicians - Sunnis, Shiites and
Kurds - who have been targeted by militants seeking to undermine a
succession of U.S.-backed governments in Iraq. Close relatives of
government officials have also been victims of assassinations,
abductions and roadside bombs.
At least 11 other people were killed or found dead on Saturday,
including a civilian who died after a parked truck packed with
explosives struck a Shiite mosque in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad,
and the bullet-riddled bodies of eight men showing signs of torture in
Fallujah.
© 2007 The Associated Press.
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