The Iraqi capital was hit by twin suicide car bombs on Monday that killed at least eight people as Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a top United States ally, made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
Sunni Arabs also on Monday ended their boycott of talks on drawing up a post-Saddam Hussein Constitution, which had threatened to delay a key stage in the country’s political transition.
The latest bombings came less than 24 hours after a massive truck blew up outside a police station in the capital on Sunday.
Monday’s first bombing targeted the Al-Sadeer hotel in central Baghdad, which is used by foreign security personnel, an interior ministry official said.
Most of the six killed and 16 wounded were hotel security guards, as the bomber exploded the car at the gates to the hotel, which has been bombed in the past.
Just more than two hours later, another car bomb targeted a police commando patrol under the Harithiyah bridge in the west of the city, killing two police officers and wounding 11.
The attacks followed Sunday’s massive suicide truck bombing at a police station in the south-east of the capital that killed 27 people, many of them police officers. Thirty-three people were wounded.
The explosion outside the Al-Rashid police station in the Al-Mashtel neighbourhood left a huge crater in the street, damaged or destroyed 22 cars and set ablaze 10 shops and a residential building.
”The bodies of the victims, many of whom were policemen, were completely burnt by the blast,” an interior ministry official said.
The US military said Iraqi police initially reported a toll of at least 40 Iraqi citizens killed and 25 wounded and that the truck was loaded with 220kg of explosives.
”It appears that the bomber who was driving the truck wanted to enter the police station, but for some reason the explosives detonated 20m before the police station,” the ministry official said.
Sunday’s attack was the worst since a July 16 attack in the southern town of Al-Musayyib in which a suicide bomber blew up a propane gas tanker, killing 83 and wounding 151.
Surprise visit
Meanwhile, Howard arrived on an unannounced visit to Baghdad where he was having talks with Iraqi Premier Ibrahim Jaafari.
Australia, a strong US ally, has about 900 troops in Iraq and Australian media reports said Howard was due to visit them in Al-Muthanna province.
Howard’s visit comes a few days after he met US President George Bush in Washington and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London.
Meanwhile, Sunni Arabs representatives said they have reached agreement with parliamentary leaders on ending their boycott of talks on drafting a new Constitution, Sunni representative on the Constitution panel Salim Abdallah said.
”All our demands were accepted,” said Abdallah, a member of the Sunni-based Islamic Party.
Sunni representatives had suspended participation in the talks in protest at Tuesday’s murder of two of their colleagues. They had demanded better security and a full investigation into the murders.
Their boycott had threatened to derail efforts to reach a deal on the Constitution in time for Parliament to vote on the draft by August 15, a deadline agreed to earlier this year. The charter will be put for an October 15 referendum.
Sunni Arabs, who make up about a fifth of the population, dominated Saddam Hussein’s regime and all previous Iraqi governments, but are under-represented in Parliament because much of the community boycotted the January elections.
The parliamentary Constitution committee brought the Sunni members on board to give the disgruntled former elite a say in drawing up the new basic law.
US officials said on Sunday that they will set up a joint task with the Iraqi authorities to decide on a timetable to hand over the security of the war-torn nation to the Iraqi forces. — Sapa-AFP