Bomb Again Targets Iraqi Cops
A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-packed vehicle near a row of police cars blocking off a bridge in central Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding 20, officials said. The attack came hours after U.S. jets pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, leaving at least 44 dead.
It was the second car bombing this week targeting Baghdad police forces, part of a stepped up campaign of violence to thwart U.S-backed efforts to strengthen the Iraqi security forces and bring stability to the country ahead of January elections.
Later in the day, a series of explosions rocked central Baghdad, though the cause or exact location of the blasts was not immediately clear.
The attack came in the middle of a busy market day, with thousands of shoppers in the area. A half-dozen police cars were parked at the bridge when a driver pulled up. Officers ordered him to stop, but he kept advancing and exploded his vehicle in the middle of the parked cars, said policeman Ammar Ali said.
"I was thrown outside my car," said another policeman, Ali Jabar, who was being treated for wounds to his face and hand at the city's main Medical City hospital. He blamed insurgents waging a 17-month campaign against Iraqi authorities and the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
"By attacking Iraqi police, they think that they will be sent to heaven, but by God's will, they are now melting in hell," Jabar said from his hospital bed.
In other recent developments:
The Iraqi Health Ministry said at least five people were killed and 20 wounded in the midday explosion in Baghad. Police fired shots afterward to disperse the crowd, and shoppers streamed from the scene.
"I saw human flesh and blood in the street, then I fled," said Mouayad Shehab.
The police vehicles had been helping to seal off the area around Haifa street, where U.S. and Iraqi forces had raided suspected insurgent hideouts in the morning, sparking a gunbattle.
The sweep arrested 63 suspects, including Syrians, Sudanese and Egyptians, and seized cashes of weapons including rockets, grenades and machine guns, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim. There was no immediate word on casualties.
West of Baghdad, an initial wave of U.S. airstrikes late Thursday targeted a compound in Fazat Shnetir, about 12 miles south of Fallujah, where militants loyal to Jordanian-born terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were meeting to plot attacks on coalition forces, the military said in a statement.
Militants who survived the strikes sought refuge in nearby villages, but U.S. forces said they quickly broke off an offensive to hunt them down in an effort to avoid civilian casualties.
Residents of one village, Fazat Shnetir, could be seen digging communal graves Friday to bury the dead in groups of four.
Earlier Friday, in Fallujah, U.S. warplanes unleashed strikes on a cluster of houses believed to be used by members of Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group, the military said.
Blood covered the floors of the Fallujah General Hospital as doctors struggled to cope with the casualties, many brought to the hospital in private cars with ambulances overwhelmed. Relatives pounded their chests in grief and denounced the United States.
Health Ministry spokesman Saad al-Amili said at least 44 people were killed and 27 injured in the Fallujah strikes. He said 17 children and two women were among the wounded. Hospital officials said women and children were also among the dead, but exact figures were not immediately available.
The military said intelligence reports estimated that up to 60 suspected insurgents may have been killed.
Iraq has seen a surge of violence in the past week that has killed more than 250 people nationwide, as insurgents persist with kidnappings and spectacular bombings aimed at driving out the United States and its allies and embarrassing the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.