Suicide bombers struck in Baghdad and to the west and south of the capital on Saturday in a string of attacks on mostly Iraqi police targets that killed more than 30 people and wounded dozens, most of them policemen.
In the worst attack, a man driving a truck packed with explosives blew up outside a police station in Baghdad’s volatile southern district of Dora, killing 20. The blast sent a large column of smoke into the air and rattled windows kilometres away in the centre of the city.
Officers said the dead included 14 policemen and three detainees as well as three others working in the building. Another 26 were wounded. The blast caused major damage to the station, burying many victims in the rubble.
Thousands of United States and Iraqi troops are sweeping through Baghdad in a major operation to stem communal bloodshed. They have succeeded in reducing the number of sectarian shootings, but curbing daily car bombings has proven more difficult.
While US and Iraqi forces are concentrating their efforts in Baghdad, US President George Bush is also sending more troops to the western province of Anbar, where Sunni Arab insurgents are exacting a bloody toll on Iraqi and US forces.
The US military said a soldier was killed in combat there on Friday.
A suicide car bomber struck a police station in the Qaim area of Anbar, near the Syrian border, on Saturday while two others struck police checkpoints at about the same time.
Dr Hamdi al-Alousi at Qaim hospital put the death toll from the attacks at six with 17 people, mostly police, wounded. Anbar provincial police said eight people had died and 20 wounded.
A suicide truck bomber also struck near a Shi’ite mosque in the town of Haswa about 60km south of Baghdad, killing eight and wounding 39, a police source said.
The spate of attacks came as US and Iraqi troops sealed off the Karrada district in the heart of Baghdad, stopping all vehicles and pedestrians from entering the area as part of the security crackdown in the capital.
At least one woman was arrested in Saturday’s operation in Karrada after about 20 weapons, including AK-47 rifles and belt-fed machineguns were found in her house, an Iraqi army officer said, showing Reuters plastic bags filled with the weapons.
The streets of Karrada, whose residents are mainly Shi’ite Muslims and Christians and include several top politicians, were largely empty. Convoys of Humvee armoured vehicles roamed the area, which is close to the international Green Zone.
Minister recovering
Salam al-Zobaie, the Sunni Deputy Prime Minister, was said to be in a good condition on Saturday after being operated on for wounds he sustained in an attempted assassination attempt by a suicide bomber at a prayer hall in his compound on Friday.
”His condition is very normal, thank God,” said Alaa al- Zobaie, one of his brothers. He dismissed reports that the bomber was one of Zobaie’s security guards.
Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi, spokesperson for security in Baghdad, said on Saturday eight members of Zobaie’s entourage were killed in the attack. An aide to Zobaie said the dead included one of Zobaie’s brothers and a brother-in-law.
Police said 26 bodies were also found around Baghdad on Friday, all apparent victims of sectarian hit squads.
There has been a sharp rise in the number of bodies found in Baghdad in the last few days, although it is still not as high as the daily toll that was regularly around 50 before the security crackdown started in mid-February.
Bush is sending nearly 30 000 additional troops to Iraq, mostly to support the security crackdown in Baghdad, despite growing opposition at home to the unpopular war.
The US House of Representatives on Friday voted to impose a September 1 2008, deadline for withdrawing all American combat troops from Iraq, prompting a quick promise of a veto from Bush.
Iraq’s government stayed silent on a diplomatic row between Britain and Iran over the seizure on Friday by Iranian forces of 15 British marines and sailors in the Shatt al-Arab waterway that forms part of the southern border between Iran and Iraq.
Iran says they entered Iranian waters illegally, while Britain says they were conducting a routine search of ships in Iraqi waters. It has demanded their immediate release. – Reuters