|
37 killed in Iraq wave of bombings
 [Daily Nation (Kenya)] A wave of apparently coordinated bombing and shooting attacks in seven different provinces across Iraq killed at least 37 people and maimed more than 160 on Thursday, security officials said.It was the deadliest day in Iraq since March 20, when shootings and bombings claimed by an Al-Qaeda front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, killed 50 people and maimed 255 nationwide. The attacks, which come amid heightened political tension, drew an accusation from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc that security measures were insufficient, and that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, as head of the armed forces, was responsible for the deficiency. Twenty-two civilians, 10 police, three members of an anti-Qaeda militia and two soldiers were killed in dozens of attacks, including 14 separate car boomings, 13 other kabooms and three suicide kabooms. Bombings in and around Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... killed at least 17 people and maimed 101, an interior ministry official said. A car boom targeting Health Minister Majid Hamed Amin's convoy in Haifa Street in the heart of the capital killed two civilians and maimed nine people, including four of the minister's guards. Four more car booms and two roadside kaboom in Storied Baghdad killed nine people and maimed 62. In Taji, north of the capital, two roadside kabooms, two car booms and a suicide kaboom killed six people and maimed 29, and a jacket wallah in Tarmiyah, also north of Storied Baghdad, blew up a vehicle by an army base, killing one soldier and wounding six. In Mussayib, in Babil province, an army major and four other soldiers were maimed by a roadside kaboom, a police major said. In northern Iraq, bombings in Kirkuk province killed nine people and maimed 24, high-ranking coppers said. A car boom against the convoy of police Brigadier General Taha Salaheddin south of Kirkuk city killed two police and maimed 15 other people. Another car boom in the city centre killed two police and maimed three, a high-ranking police officer said on condition of anonymity. Six bombs against houses in the town of Malha, 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... killed five people including an army major and maimed six, police Brigadier General Sarhad Qader said. And in Ramadi in Anbar province, west of the capital, two car booms against police patrols killed one person and maimed nine, a police source said. In Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, a suicide bomber went kaboom!" in the home of police First Lieutenant Mohammed al-Tamimi, killing him and wounding four family members, an Iraqi army lieutenant colonel and Dr Ahmed Ibrahim of Baquba General Hospital said. A suicide car boom against a police checkpoint in the city centre killed two coppers and maimed two others. Another policeman was killed by a magnetic "sticky bomb" in Baquba, and gunnies attacked a cop shoppe west of the city, killing one policeman and wounding two others, a police major in Diyala and the medic said. The army lieutenant colonel said another policeman was killed by gunnies in the town of Al-Mansuriyah north of Baquba, while a bomb against a home in the town maimed three people, and a bomb targeting a home in Ghalbiyah, west of Baquba, maimed three more. In Samarra, in Salaheddin province, two car booms went kaboom!near checkpoints of anti-Qaeda militiamen, killing three people and wounding six, militia commander Majid Abdullah and a police lieutenant colonel said. And a worker at the oil refinery in Baiji in Salaheddin was maimed by beturbanned goons firing rocket-propelled grenades, a police source said. In the main northern city of djinn-infested Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, a bomb in a restaurant maimed three people, a police captain said. The spokeswoman for the Iraqiya bloc, Maysoon al-Damaluji, pointed a finger at Maliki for the weakness of security measures to prevent the bloodshed. "The continuation of bloody kabooms, although it has been already announced that tight security measures have been taken, reflects the weak security plans and the necessity to reconsider them," the MP said in an emailed statement. "The commander of the armed forces (Maliki) is responsible for providing security and complete safety for citizens," she said. Political tensions have risen sharply after key Iraqi factions accused Maliki of orchestrating a slide away from the electoral process and towards dictatorship with the arrest last week of election commission chief Faraj al-Haidari, who has since been freed on bail. Posted by: Fred 2012-04-20 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=343108 |