Blast kills 21 Iraqi troops

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A suicide bomber killed 21 Iraqi troops Tuesday and wounded 27 at an army recruiting station in Baghdad, the U.S. military said, scattering body parts across the pavement and shaking the post-election confidence of the nation’s capital.

Saleh Sarhan, a spokesman for the Iraqi Defense Ministry, said the attack had a simple design: “A man walked in with a suicide belt, and he exploded himself.”

In a separate incident Tuesday, gunmen ambushed a Jeep Cherokee in an apparent effort to kill a controversial Iraqi politician, Mithal al-Alusi, who’s called for peace with Israel. Al-Alusi wasn’t in the vehicle but two of his sons and a bodyguard were, all of whom died in the hail of AK-47 bullets in front of a girls’ high school.

The explosion brought Iraqi deaths from insurgent attacks in a 48-hour period to about 50, and rattled the sense of well-being that came after national elections Jan. 30. Many Iraqis had hoped that the enthusiastic election turnout would blunt the insurgency.

But with violence having picked up again, U.S. and Iraqi officials are trying to puzzle out whether the voting had any significant effect.

Insurgent attacks on the American military hit a one-day record of 260 on election day. A U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said this week that attacks had fallen in the days after the election, although specific figures haven’t been released.

The number of American service members killed in the week after the election – nine – was lower than that of the week prior – 13 – according to the U.S. Central Command, the division of the military that’s responsible for the Middle East. If sustained at nine a week, the death toll would mark a significant reduction from the level of American casualties in recent months. U.S. officials were uncertain whether the lower death count was the start of a new trend or merely a lull of the sort seen frequently in the past.

Nabil Salman, a professor at Baghdad University who’s studied insurgent trends, thinks insurgent attacks will stay high as long as American troops remain in the country.

“The results of the elections will not change a lot about this resistance unless there is a key change in the policy of our government regarding the occupying forces in Iraq,” he said.

None of the leading political tickets is presently calling for a scheduled withdrawal of U.S. troops.

It’s also possible that insurgents are continuing to shift their attacks to Iraqi targets, including security forces and possibly Shiite Muslims, to the extent that the insurgency is made up of anti-Shiites from the Sunni Muslim minority.

While most agree that the elections brought out a surprising number of voters given the level of violence in Iraq – at least 65 people were killed that day, including insurgents – the low turnout in the Sunni community could portend stronger support for the insurgency, which is mainly Sunni.

Despite these concerns, there’s still enthusiasm about the elections on the streets of Baghdad.

“We’ll have a new and strong government which will take care of the security of the country and the security of the people,” said Ali Faleh, a 20-year-old street vendor who was selling cigarettes to passers-by.