| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Suicide boomer targets Iraqi recruiting station |
| 2005-04-20 |
| A suicide bomber killed six people outside an Iraqi army recruitment center in Baghdad, as insurgents stepped up attacks on targets ranging from would-be recruits to top military officers in their homes. The latest bloodshed Tuesday came as politicians wrangled over the make-up of the next government, more than 11 weeks after general elections, a delay that many fear plays into rebel hands. A suicide bomber blew up a car outside a palace of ousted president Saddam Hussein, now used by the army, killing six people and wounding 40, a defense ministry spokesman said. Most of the victims were soldiers or would-be recruits. At least seven civilians were wounded when a second car bomber later the same day targeted a US patrol in west Baghdad, an interior ministry official said. A spokeswoman for the US military confirmed there had been an attack, but declined to give a toll. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al Qaeda-linked group said it had carried out the latest deadly attack in a statement posted on a website that it habitually uses to claim operations in Iraq. The defense ministry spokesman said at least three more soldiers were killed in another attack against an army patrol in Khalidiyah, west of the capital. Several men in army uniforms late Monday forced their way into the southern Baghdad home of Major General Adnan Faush Farawni, a senior advisor to the defense ministry. Both he and his son, Captain Alladin Farawni, who worked in intelligence, were shot dead, the interior and defense ministries said. Meanwhile, Brigadier General Hussein Hato al-Jabeeri, an inspector general for southern provinces, and his driver were shot dead in their car in Amara, some 350 kilometers (210 miles) southeast of Baghdad, a police captain said. On Sunday, another top-ranking officer, Brigadier General Yunis Mohammed Sulaiman, was killed on his way to work in the main northern city of Mosul. Civilians were the targets as three men in a car gunned down Fuwad Ibrahim al-Bayatie, head of the German-language department at Baghdad University, outside his west Baghdad home, an interior ministry official said. In Stockholm, the foreign ministry said a Swede of Iraqi origin had gone missing in Syria while on his way to Iraq and had not been heard from for three weeks. According to Swedish news agency TT, the man, whose name was not disclosed, is a senior member of the Iraqi Communist Party and was working as an economic adviser to the Iraqi government when he disappeared. Meanwhile, politicians pushed on with their efforts to reach agreement on the makeup of the new Iraqi government, 11 weeks after general elections won by the Shiite majority and the Kurds. An representative involved in the negotiations, Mariam al-Rais, from the majority United Iraqi Alliance, said the government should be announced by the end of the week. A last sticking point involved the number of ministries to be given to members of outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party, she said. The Shiite-based alliance were expected to be handed 17 ministries, including interior, oil and finance, while the Kurds would get nine, retaining the foreign ministry, she said. Sunnis were slated to get four ministries, Turkmans one, Christians one and Allawi's party four, she added. Angry delegates suspended a sitting of parliament for an hour and then passed a motion demanding an official apology from the United States after one of them was manhandled by a US soldier at a checkpoint in Baghdad. They called for the soldier to be disciplined. The US army meanwhile said a 51-year-old man detained at Camp Bucca, in the south of the country, died, apparently of natural causes. Camp Bucca, the country's largest US-run detention facility, has more than 6,000 inmates. US and Iraqi forces are holding more than 17,000 people. On the economic front, Iraq has officially resumed crude oil exports to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, a State Oil Marketing Organization official said. He declined to give any new export statistics for security reasons. Oil exports through Turkey, previously averaging 350,000 barrels per day from Kirkuk oil fields in northern Iraq, have repeatedly been brought to a halt by sabotage. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 A suicide bomber killed six people outside an Iraqi army recruitment center in Baghdad, as insurgents stepped up attacks on targets ranging from would-be recruits to top military officers in their homes. When ya can't kill Americans, the next best thing is to kill your fellow Muslims. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-04-20 10:14:03 AM |