Suicide Bomber Kills Iraqi Police Recruits
16 People Die, Including Two Officers; Al Qaeda Attacks Moving To Remote Areas
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Iraqi soldiers guard five foreigners that they arrested during a searching patrol in a village near the city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq, on Thursday, May, 29, 2008, Iraqi army said. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)
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Four of six Iraqi teenage boys purportedly being trained as suicide bombers stand in front of a wall inside the police headquarters of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday, May 26, 2008. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that initial investigations show they were being trained by a Saudi militant who was killed in military operations. (AP Photo/Emad Matti)
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U.S. soldiers try to extinguish an American armoured vehicle at Al Canal street, near Sadr City, Baghdad, after a roadside bomb exploded next to a U.S. military convoy, on Monday, May 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
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A jubilant Iraq national football team poses with their winning trophy at the Asian Football Cup 2007 in Jakarta, July 29, 2007. FIFA, the international governing body of football, suspended Iraq from international competition for one year because of a decision by the Iraqi government to disband all national sports governing bodies. (RAHMAN/AFP/Getty)
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The blast occurred about 11 a.m. in Sinjar, a town near the Syrian border that was the site of the deadliest attack of the war - a series of suicide truck bombings last year that killed an estimated 500 people.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the latest attack. But it bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda in Iraq, underscoring Iraqi claims that insurgents have fled to remote areas to escape a U.S.-Iraqi offensive under way in Mosul, which is about 74.57 miles east of Sinjar.
The top official in Sinjar, Dakhil Qassim, said the casualties would have been higher, but the security services had received tips that police recruiting centers would be targeted and had issued a warning on Wednesday advising people to stay away.
But a crowd still gathered at the center in Sinjar. Those killed included 14 recruits and two policemen, while 14 other people were wounded, Qassim said.
"We told them that there are no more recruiting for security reasons," Qassim said. "But people gathered at recruiting center anyway hoping that some official might register their names."
Despite the risks, jobs in the police force are prized in areas of the country where unemployment runs high.
Sinjar is dominated by Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect whose members are considered to be blasphemers by Muslim extremists. The U.S. military blamed al Qaeda for the Aug. 14 bombings that devastated nearby villages and killed some 500 people.
In other developments:
U.S. and Iraqi forces have met relatively little resistance during the operations in Mosul, although there have been sporadic attacks. Commanders have said they believe insurgent leaders had fled to neighboring areas and would try to regroup.
Another suicide bomber driving a police vehicle struck Iraqi commandos earlier Thursday in Mosul, killing three of them and wounding nine other people, according to battalion commander Capt. Aziz Latif.
The victims were from a unit sent from the southern city of Kut to participate in the Mosul crackdown, Latif said.
The operation in Mosul is one of three recently launched by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government in a bid to clamp down on violence in the country. The other two have focused on Shiite extremists in the southern city of Basra and Baghdad's Sadr City district.
Despite continuing attacks, death tolls among Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops have dropped sharply in Iraq this month. An average of 17 Iraqis have been killed by violence each day this month, the lowest level since December 2005, according to an Associated Press tally.
At least 20 U.S. troop deaths have been recorded so far this month, putting May on track to be the lowest monthly toll this year, an AP count shows.
Al-Maliki touted his government's security and economic progress at a U.N. conference in Stockholm, Sweden.
"Iraq has achieved major success in the battle against terrorism with the support of the international community," he said.
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"But it bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda in Iraq"
A typical Muslim savages blows himself in the middle of a crowd. Aren''t ALL suicide bombings the same? Why does THIS point to al Qaeda in Iraq? What is this opposed to? The suicide bombers that blow themselves up in flower fields?
King Bush, what happened to the success of the "Surge" ?