A suicide car bomber hit a police station in northeast Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing 10 people, including two people in the car, police and the United States military said.
Captain Sean Kirley of the 2nd Armored Cavalry said three policemen and five civilians were killed. Iraqi police Captain Bassem Sami said there were two people in the car that exploded. He said 28 people were wounded.
Kirley said the blast created a crater in the police station courtyard that was about 3m across and more than a meter deep.
Police Major Majid Abdel-Hameed said the car was a white Oldsmobile. The driver drove through the police compound gate, was fired at by officers and then detonated the bomb.
A dozen of ambulances raced toward the facility in the Shiite Muslim slum known as Sadr City. The attack happened just as 50 police officers were gathered in the yard to collect their pay.
Sergeant Saad Drawal al-Dharaji (29), injured in the leg, said a local Shiite Muslim imam had threatened the police.
”We will have our revenge for this. The one who did it threatened us first. I don’t know his name. He is the imam of Friday prayers at the al-Mohsen mosque,” al-Dharaji said. ”Last Friday at the mosque he threatened us. He sent us letters and sent letters to other police stations. He told the police to hand over a policeman for punishment because he said he had worked with Saddam Hussein’s regime.”
Police Sergeant Jassim Mohsen (31) confirmed that threats had been issued against the police.
An Iraqi policeman who pushed through the thousands of neighbourhood people who gathered around the scene had been stabbed in the upper right arm after being set upon by the mob. He was treated by military medics at the scene.
His arrival created a commotion among the crowd, which began chanting: ”No, no to America.”
Associated Press Television News camera crews also were attacked by the crowds and had some equipment stolen. One crew member was slightly injured.
There were many mangled police cars at the bomb site and much debris in the big courtyard in front of the one-story building.
Scores of US soldiers surrounded the building in Humvees.
A mosque near the scene was blaring warnings to the thousands of residents who had gathered at the station to leave the area for fear of a second booby-trapped car.
”It was a huge blast and everything became dark from the debris and sand. I was thrown to the ground,” said Mohammed Adnan (35), who sells watermelons from a rickety stand across from blast.
Also opposite the police station, Fakhriya Jarallah, who sells vegetables, said two of her sons were repairing the outside wall of the compound when the blast occurred.
”I ran across the road like a mad woman to find out what happened to my sons. But thanks to God they are both safe,” she said. — Sapa-AP