At least 30 people were killed when a car bomb exploded outside a hospital in Iraq on Thursday in a notorious area known as the ”triangle of death”.
The bombing, which also left about 23 people wounded, occurred in Mahmudiyah, about 20km south of the capital, in an area known for frequent insurgent attacks on Iraqi and United States government forces.
The US military also reported the death of three of its soldiers from gunshot wounds in two incidents on Wednesday.
The latest deaths, reported as Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, bring to at least 2 108 the number of US military personnel killed since the March 2003 invasion, according to the Pentagon.
According to the United Kingdom-based Iraq Body Count, between 27 094 and 30 538 ordinary Iraqis have died since the invasion.
In other violence …
In other violence on Thursday, five Iraqis were killed in a series of attacks, including three policemen and one officer shot dead by gunmen in the capital.
Authorities also found the bodies of two men and two women, strangled or shot dead, in Yussufiyah, on the southern outskirts of the capital.
The latest unrest comes just three weeks ahead of national elections for a four-year term Parliament, the final stage in the country’s transition to democracy since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
On Wednesday, a top Sunni Arab tribal chief and four relatives were gunned down in a pre-dawn raid on their home and two high-ranking officials were killed.
Leaders from all religious and political affiliations have been regularly targeted by death squads in the strife following the fall of Saddam’s regime.
With Iraqi officials expressing the hope that a timetable will soon be set for the withdrawal of foreign forces and the US Congress clamouring for an exit strategy, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has hinted that a reduction in US forces could come ”fairly soon”.
She said that as Iraqi security forces were trained to face the insurgency, the number of outside troops ”is clearly going to come down”.
”The American forces are not going to be needed in the numbers that they are there for all that much longer.”
The number of US troops in Iraq currently numbers about 158 000, up by about 20 000 on their base level because of a short-term force increase to ensure security for last month’s referendum on the Constitution and the December 15 election.
US officials, including the ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, have clearly suggested however that the number would begin to drop early next year.
A US military spokesperson had called on Wednesday for some insurgent groups to be brought into the political process, while insisting that al-Qaeda was being hit hard by offensives.
”We understand the capabilities, the vulnerabilities and the intentions of each group of the insurgency — the foreign fighters, the Iraqi rejectionists and the Saddamists,” Major General Rick Lynch told reporters.
”The group in the middle, the Iraqi rejectionists — [which] includes the Shia rejectionists and the Sunni rejectionists — we believe that deliberate outreach will allow them to participate in the political process and allow them to become part of the solution and not part of the problem,” he said.
Meanwhile, Japan sealed a deal with Iraq to forgive about $6,1-billion or 80% of the debt it is owed by the war-ravaged country in line with an international accord reached last year.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso exchanged notes on the deal with his visiting Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari in Tokyo, officials said.
Zebari, who arrived on Wednesday in Tokyo, was to meet Japanese government leaders, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Friday, before wrapping up his visit on Saturday.
Iraq is saddled with foreign debt estimated at $120-billion, excluding reparations it owes Kuwait for the 1990 invasion and 1991 Gulf War, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund.
The Paris Club of 19 creditor countries, including the United States, Japan, Russia and European Union nations, agreed in November 2004 to write off 80% of the money it was owed by Iraq over three years. – Sapa-AFP