Suicide Truck Bomber Strikes Iraqi Police

Clashes Reported As U.S. Military Helicopter Flares Spark Fiery War Of Words

(CBS/AP)  Police and rescuers dug through the rubble in a desperate search for survivors or bodies of more victims. About 60 vehicles inside the compound also were destroyed.

"It was a huge blast, my house was damaged," said Khalaf Eidan, a 45-year-old shopkeeper who lives nearby. "I thank God that none of my children were hurt."

The blast was the deadliest of a series of attacks and other violence that killed at least 26 people, many targeting Iraqi police as militants continue to hammer the country's shaky security forces. The terror campaign against Iraqi troops and police appears designed to blunt U.S. progress in creating a stable local force so the Americans can go home.

In Other Developments:

An apparent suicide car bomber took aim at a U.S. convoy carrying demolition experts on Sunday, collapsing a major highway overpass south of Baghdad and trapping American soldiers in the rubble. The vehicle detonated beside a support pillar, bringing down an Army checkpoint and a tent that had been on the collapsing span, dubbed "Checkpoint 20" by the U.S. military. The overpass, one of two crossing over Iraq's main north-south highway in the region, appeared to be closed to all but military traffic at the time. A U.S. Army quick reaction force and the staff of Armor Group International, a private security firm that was in charge of the passing convoy, worked for some 45 minutes to pull trapped men from the rubble about six miles east of Mahmoudiya. There appeared to be several casualties, including an Iraqi interpreter who was wounded. The attack, which was witnessed by an Associated Press reporter and a photographer who were in the approaching convoy, occurred in the triangle of death, so called for frequent Sunni insurgent attacks. Iraqi police said the overpass was a vital link across the highway for villagers in the area because the other spans have been taken over by U.S. forces.

A roadside bomb struck a police patrol near a gas station in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding 6 other people — five officers and one civilian — according to the provincial police center for Diyala, a hotbed of the Sunni insurgency that has become increasingly dangerous since the beginning of the Baghdad security operation nearly four months ago.

A suicide car bomber smashed into a police patrol about 12 miles south of the provincial capital of Baqouba, killing two policemen and wounding three others, officers at the provincial police center said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Gunmen elsewhere in the volatile Diyala province killed two policemen and a civilian in two separate attacks in the Shiite enclave of Khalis, they said. The police chief of the Zuhra station in the Abbarah village northeast of Baqouba also was abducted after gunmen ambushed his car, police said, two days after an attack on another local police chief's house that left his wife, two brothers and 11 guards dead.

A suicide car bomber exploded in a line of cars waiting for gas about 11:45 a.m. in Baiyaa, an area in western Baghdad that has seen a recent rise in sectarian violence despite a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown that began on Feb. 14. About 15 minutes later, parked car bomb also ripped through cars waiting for gas in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Sadiyah in southwestern Baghdad.

A roadside bomb targeted a convoy of a Kurdish brigade that had recently been deployed in western Baghdad as part of the security operation, killing one soldier and wounding three, an army officer from the brigade said on condition of anonymity. The attack occurred in Sulaiman Pak, 90 miles south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The Iraqi high tribunal said it will issue a verdict on June 24 in the trial of Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and four other former regime officials who face a possible death sentence if convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in a 1980s military campaign against the Kurds.

Protesting Turkey's shelling of northern Iraq, radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned Sunday that Iraqis would not remain silent in the face of Ankara's "transgressions" and called on the Turkish people to join Iraqis in rejecting such actions. In a statement issued in the holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad, the Shiite cleric said he was saddened by last week's shelling, which prompted Iraq's Foreign Ministry to summon Turkey's top diplomat in Baghdad and hand him a formal protest note Saturday. "We will not stay silent in the face of these transgressions because our faith and our nation call upon us to defend Iraq and every inch of its territory, which we consider to be holy."

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Add a Comment

by daoud_a June 13, 2007 2:04 PM EDT

America other war

It donned on me after reading about the war in Iraq that what is happening there it%u2019s systematic and organize approach of destruction to that country lade by the USA
And it%u2019s so called allays (allays of destruction).
Every one of those allay have his one agenda, there willing to do what the US asks of them as loge the US give them a free hand in Iraq. And the white house is no hurry to stop the killing, for one simple reason that is if the killing stops every one will start to look for rebuilding of Iraq and will start to looking for money from oil. Than every one will see the facts of this war it%u2019s not abut freeing Iraqis from a dictator or preventing Iraq regime from owning biological or comical weapons it%u2019s about oil and money louts of money Bush and Chaney is the ultimate beneficiary of this war and the money it%u2019s generating. So why stop the war? Who will benefit from that? The Iraqi people!!!!!!

Reply to this comment

by bluestardad June 11, 2007 8:50 AM EDT

TAKE BACK U.S. GOVERNMENT FROM THE ISRAELI LOBBIES!

It is not anti Semitic to believe there are millions of other good people in the Middle East with valid concerns!

Even Eisenhower had problems with Israeli groups READ BELOW but he did not let them buy him!

READ AS THEY BRAG ABOUT THEIR INFLUENCE ON OUR GOVERNMENT!
http://www.aipac.org/forms/
join_aipacClubs.htm


Founded in 1953 by Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen, AIPAC's original name was the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs. According to UCLA political science professor and author, Steven Spiegel, "the tension between the Eisenhower administration and Israeli supporters was so acute that there were rumors that the administration would investigate the American Zionist Council. Therefore, an independent lobbying committee was formed, which years later was renamed [AIPAC]." Today, AIPAC has over 100,000 members.[1] Activities and stated goals
AIPAC's stated purpose is to lobby the Congress of the United States on issues and legislation "to ensure that the U.S.-Israel relationship is strong so that both countries can work together" to meet the challenges of "stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.[2] It regularly meets with members of Congress where it can share its views. AIPAC has been effective in gaining support for Israel among members of Congress and White House administrations.
The New York Times described AIPAC on July 6, 1987 as "a major force in shaping United States policy in the Middle East."

Reply to this comment

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[daoud_a]

America other war

It donned on me after reading about the war in Iraq that what is happening there it%u2019s systematic and organize approach of destruction to that country lade by the USA
And it%u2019s so called allays (allays of destruction).
Every one of those allay have his one agenda, there willing to do what the US asks of them as loge the US give them a free hand in Iraq. And the white house is no hurry to stop the killing, for one simple reason that is if the killing stops every one will start to look for rebuilding of Iraq and will start to looking for money from oil. Than every one will see the facts of this war it%u2019s not abut freeing Iraqis from a dictator or preventing Iraq regime from owning biological or comical weapons it%u2019s about oil and money louts of money Bush and Chaney is the ultimate beneficiary of this war and the money it%u2019s generating. So why stop the war? Who will benefit from that? The Iraqi people!!!!!!

[bluestardad]

TAKE BACK U.S. GOVERNMENT FROM THE ISRAELI LOBBIES!

It is not anti Semitic to believe there are millions of other good people in the Middle East with valid concerns!

Even Eisenhower had problems with Israeli groups READ BELOW but he did not let them buy him!

READ AS THEY BRAG ABOUT THEIR INFLUENCE ON OUR GOVERNMENT!
http://www.aipac.org/forms/
join_aipacClubs.htm


Founded in 1953 by Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen, AIPAC's original name was the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs. According to UCLA political science professor and author, Steven Spiegel, "the tension between the Eisenhower administration and Israeli supporters was so acute that there were rumors that the administration would investigate the American Zionist Council. Therefore, an independent lobbying committee was formed, which years later was renamed [AIPAC]." Today, AIPAC has over 100,000 members.[1] Activities and stated goals
AIPAC's stated purpose is to lobby the Congress of the United States on issues and legislation "to ensure that the U.S.-Israel relationship is strong so that both countries can work together" to meet the challenges of "stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.[2] It regularly meets with members of Congress where it can share its views. AIPAC has been effective in gaining support for Israel among members of Congress and White House administrations.
The New York Times described AIPAC on July 6, 1987 as "a major force in shaping United States policy in the Middle East."