A woman suicide bomber blew herself up at an Iraqi police recruitment centre on Wednesday, killing five people in an attack claimed by al-Qaeda’s Iraq frontman, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Another four people, including a United States soldier, were killed in attacks as US President George Bush warned again of an upsurge in violence ahead of next month’s vote on the draft Iraqi Constitution and elections in December.
”As these milestones approach, we can expect there to be increasing violence from the terrorists,” Bush said at the White House. ”They can’t stand elections. The thought of people voting is an anathema to them.”
In Tal Afar in northern Iraq, a woman pushed her way into a crowd and blew herself up at a police recruitment centre in the first insurgent attack in the town since Iraqi forces announced the end of military operations there 10 days ago.
Speaking from his hospital bed, Jumaa Mohammed, one of the 35 wounded, said the attack was carried out by a woman wearing Islamic dress.
”It was a young woman. She pushed her way through the crowd and then there was an explosion.”
Attacks by female suicide bombers are rare in Iraq, but insurgents have repeatedly targeted army and police recruitment centres.
Zarqawi’s group, which is behind many of the most spectacular attacks and kidnapping and killing of foreign hostages, claimed responsibility for the attack in an internet statement that could not be verified.
”An honourable sister from the martyrdom-seeking Al-Baraa bin Malek Brigade … carried out a heroic attack this Wednesday morning against a group of volunteers to the ranks of apostasy … at an apostate recruitment centre in Tal Afar,” it said.
Iraqi authorities said on Tuesday al-Qaeda’s number two in the country, Abu Azzam, had been killed in a US-Iraqi raid on a hideout in Baghdad, but the group denied the claim in an internet statement.
The Jordanian-born Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man with a $25-million price on his head, has declared an all-out war on the majority Shi’ites who now dominate the country after decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also warned of ”more dark moments” in Iraq, but insisted that Britain will remain so long as it has the consent of the Iraqi people.
Other attacks
In Baquba, north-east of Bahgdad, a man rammed an explosives-packed car into a police checkpoint, killing a civilian and wounding 13 other people, eight of them police officers. On Monday, another 10 people had been killed in a similar attack on a police recruitment centre also claimed by Zarqawi’s group.
A US soldier was also killed and another wounded in a bomb attack near Safwan in southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border, the US military said.
That brought to at least 1 917 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of March 2003, plus five civilian Defence Department employees.
Two people were also killed when they were caught in gunfire against a Jordanian embassy car, an official said in Amman.
None of the car’s passengers were hurt, but the driver of a civilian car and an Iraqi police officer behind the Jordanian vehicle were killed.
Opinion poll
Despite the violence, an opinion poll published on Wednesday found that more than 80% of Iraqis would vote in the October 15 referendum on the draft Constitution, a key stage in Iraq’s political transition post-Saddam Hussein.
At the same time, 49% said they believe the charter expresses the will of the people, against only 30% who said no.
However, 47% said they were not totally satisfied that all ethnic and religious groups were fully able to take part in drafting the Constitution, a document that has deeply divided the country’s ethnic groups.
The once-dominant Sunni Arab community under Saddam has complained that majority Shi’ites and the Kurds, who together are dominant in the new Iraq, have imposed their views, notably on turning Iraq into a federal state.
The survey put electricity shortages at the top of Iraqis’ everyday concerns, followed by ethnic tension and religious tension.
Meanwhile, a US military court sentenced army Private Lynndie England to three years in prison for her role in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail.
The woman shown in photographs holding a naked Iraqi detainee on a lead was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to maltreat prisoners, four counts of maltreatment and one count of committing an indecent act. — Sapa-AFP