More deadly blasts in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Insurgents unleashed a series of deadly bombings in Iraq’s capital and beyond Saturday, staging carefully coordinated and increasingly sophisticated assaults that killed at least 65 people over two days and appeared timed to deflate hopes in Washington and Baghdad that the nation’s first democratically elected government would curb spiking violence.
At least 17 Iraqis and one U.S. soldier were killed in the bloodletting Saturday. The military also announced that six other U.S. soldiers had been killed and six wounded in Iraq since Thursday.
The attacks continued for a third straight day today when insurgents armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades ambushed a police checkpoint in Baghdad, killing five policemen and wounding one.
In the well-coordinated attack, a pickup stopped near the checkpoint and insurgents jumped out and fired machine guns. They were joined by other militants who had been hiding behind nearby trees, said police Lt. Col. Sabah Hamid al-Firtosi.
The U.S. Army, meanwhile, released a report clearing American soldiers in the death of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq and recommending no disciplinary action. The agent was escorting a released Italian hostage when American soldiers fired on their car.
At least five car bombs rocked Baghdad on Saturday, the heart of the Iraqi government and American occupation, U.S. military spokesman Greg Kaufman said. Six more exploded in the northern city of Mosul, which also has seen frequent attacks.
U.S. and Iraqi officials had hoped to curb support for the militants by including members of the Sunni Arab minority in a new Shiite-dominated Cabinet that will be sworn in Tuesday. Sunnis, who held monopoly power during the rule of Saddam Hussein, are believed to be the backbone of Iraq’s insurgency. Most stayed away from landmark Jan. 30 parliamentary elections – either in protest or out of fear of attack.
However, the lineup named by incoming Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari after months of political wrangling excluded Sunnis from meaningful positions and left the key defense and oil ministries – among other unfilled posts – in temporary hands.
Approval of the Cabinet on Thursday was met with an onslaught of bombings – including a number of highly coordinated suicide attacks – in the capital and elsewhere.
Saturday’s attacks included a suicide bombing that targeted a joint U.S. military and Iraqi police patrol in western Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounding seven, including four policemen, police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said.
Minutes later, a second suicide bomber plowed into a civilian convoy near the offices of the National Dialogue Council, a coalition of 10 Sunni Arab factions that was negotiating for a stake in the new government.
The blast killed at least one council guard and injured 18 other Iraqis, said police Capt. Kadhim Abbas at al-Yarmouk Hospital.
A third suicide car bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol exploded near the Mohammed Rasoul Allah Mosque in eastern Baghdad, killing two Iraqi women and a girl, and seriously wounding four soldiers, police Lt. Col. Ahmed Abboud Effait said.
Later, a fourth suicide attacker targeted an American patrol near al-Shaab stadium in eastern Baghdad, killing two civilians in passing cars and injuring four, police said.
Two Iraqis – a policeman and a former official in Saddam’s Baath Party – also died in shootings Saturday in Baghdad, police said.
At least five Iraqis were killed and 12 wounded in the attacks in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Two U.S. soldiers also were injured.
A bomb hidden in a Mosul shrine killed a woman and two children, and injured one American soldier, the military said.
A suicide car bomber targeting an American convoy killed two more Iraqis and wounded three, and another targeting Iraqi police injured four officers and five civilians, the military said in a statement.
Two civilian bystanders were wounded when a roadside bomb aimed at a police patrol exploded south of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi army Brig. Hamid Al-Timimi said.
West of Baghdad, the U.S. military said three civilians were killed and at least one wounded when rockets and mortars slammed into Fallujah.
A young girl was among those killed, and Associated Press Television News footage showed a weeping man kissing the child’s corpse at Fallujah General Hospital. Officials there reported nine people injured in the attack 40 miles west of the capital.
Fearing the violence could spread, Iraq’s neighbors pledged at a meeting Saturday in Turkey to boost border security and increase intelligence sharing with the country’s newly elected government, steps that could stem the flow of insurgents slipping across the poorly patrolled frontiers.
Syria, meanwhile, announced it would restore relations with Iraq after more than two decades.
The American deaths announced Saturday included one American killed Saturday in gunfire in Khaldiyah, 75 miles west of Baghdad, two killed Friday in a roadside bombing west of Baghdad and four killed and two injured in another bombing Thursday in Tal Afar, near the Syrian border.
Four more U.S. soldiers were wounded when their Humvee rolled into a ditch Friday night near Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.