A woman veiled in black and strapped with explosives blew herself up outside a police station in Iraq on Tuesday, killing 16 people, many of them looking for jobs in the police force.
The bombing occurred in the restive town of Muqdadiyah, in the flashpoint province of Diyala, which is now considered the second most dangerous area of Iraq after Baghdad itself.
Police first lieutenant Mohammed Ahmed said the bomber detonated her charge amid a group of people at a kiosk opposite a police station where would-be recruits were buying application forms to join the United States-backed security force.
Another 32 people were wounded in the attack, local police said.
Interior ministry spokesperson Brigadier General Abdul Karim Khalaf confirmed that the woman had dressed in the all enveloping traditional black abaya worn by women in the area.
Insurgents also killed four more US soldiers and attacked two American military helicopters in Baghdad, the military reported.
Two roadside bomb blasts killed three soldiers and wounded another on Monday while they were patrolling south-east Baghdad where a massive Iraqi-US security crackdown has been under way for nearly two months to quell bloodshed.
The fourth soldier died on Monday while conducting combat operations in the restive Al-Anbar province, a known hotbed for Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda militants west of Baghdad.
The latest fatalities brought to 32 the US military’s losses in this month alone and to 3 280 since the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, according to an Agence France-Presse count based on Pentagon figures.
Insurgents also attacked two US military helicopters in Baghdad on Tuesday.
”Two helicopters have received small arms fire. Both helicopters returned safely to base,” Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver said. ”Both were in the central Baghdad area.”
Since January 20, at least 10 US helicopters — including two operated by private security firms — have crashed in Iraq, most of them to hostile fire.
On Tuesday, sound of steady gunfire reverberated in central Baghdad’s al-Fadhel district amid swooping US helicopters.
Iraqi Brigadier General Qassim Atta Mussawi said security forces were conducting raids in the district.
Facing its toughest time in Iraq, the US military is under pressure from sustained attacks by insurgents and militias, and also faces rising calls for troops to withdraw, both back home and in Iraq itself.
But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, on a trip to Tokyo before heading to Seoul, rejected demands for a timetable for foreign troops to withdraw from his country.
”We see no need for a withdrawal timetable because we are working as fast as we can,” Maliki told a news conference in Tokyo.
”We feel what will govern the departure of the multinational forces are the achievements and victories we manage to obtain on the ground and not a timetable.”
On Monday, the military witnessed the strongest protest yet against its four-year presence in Iraq when a massive Shi’ite rally in the holy city of Najaf called for US troops to leave.
The movement of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which organised the rally, cited television footage, pictures and the number of vehicles that brought the protestors to Najaf to claim nearly a million people attended the protest.
Local police spokesperson Brigadier General Ali Jeriu said on Tuesday that tens of thousands of people attended the demonstration, while US military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl gave a much lower figure of 15 000.
Al-Sadr, known for his strong anti-US stance, called the rally to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to US invading forces, in an attempt to garner public support to demand the withdrawal of US-led troops.
Many people draped in Iraqi flags set the US flag ablaze.
But al-Sadr disappointed followers by not showing up, adding fuel to speculation he is not in Iraq, but perhaps in Iran as claimed by the US military.
The cleric went underground more than two months ago after the launch of the Baghdad security crackdown which targets his militiamen accused of spearheading the killings of Sunni Arabs. – Sapa-AFP