Car Bomb Attack in Iraq Kills 10

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Attackers detonated a car bomb near police and government buildings in the western city of Haditha on Thursday, killing 10 Iraqis, including three police officers, in the latest in a series of insurgent attacks on Iraqi authorities.

Police apparently thwarted a second attack in Karbala, where police chased a car after receiving a tip it was filled with explosives. The two people inside detonated their bomb, killing only themselves and causing no other casualties.

The violence came a day after a suicide attacker in Baghdad killed at least 10 people in a car bombing near Iraqi government headquarters and insurgents assassinated a provincial governor in an ambush of his convoy.

The attack in Haditha, known as a stronghold of Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime, hit a government complex that houses the police station, civil defense headquarters and the municipal building. In addition to the 10 killed, the blast wounded 27 people, said Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Police and government officials have repeatedly been targeted by insurgents, who view them as lackeys of U.S. forces here.

The violent insurgency that has wracked the country since the fall of Saddam’s regime 15 months ago has continued since U.S. forces handed power over to Iraq’s interim government.

Insurgents detonated a massive car bomb Wednesday at a checkpoint just outside the so-called Green Zone, former home to the U.S. occupation government and currently home to the Iraqi interim government and the U.S. and British embassies.

The blast ripped a deep crater in the road and killed 10 Iraqis, many as they waited in line to apply for jobs with the government, the Health Ministry said. The U.S. military said 11 were killed.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the bombing was retaliation for the government’s arrests of terror suspects.

Hours later, insurgents tossed hand grenades and fired machine guns at a convoy transporting Nineveh Gov. Osama Youssef Kashmoula, killing him and two of his guards, Iraqi and U.S. military officials said. Mosul is the largest city in Nineveh province.

Kashmoula was attacked between the cities of Beiji and Tikrit north of Baghdad as he traveled to the capital, the U.S. military said. Four of the attackers were killed in the fight, Mosul officials said.

In the attack just outside Karbala on Thursday, police chased down insurgents after getting a tip they had a car bomb, said Rahman Mshawi, a spokesman for the Karbala police. “Finding themselves surrounded, the two persons inside detonated the car,” Mshawi said.

In a separate attack early Thursday, a rocket landed on a home in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing four people and wounding three others, police and hospital officials said.

A second rocket also struck a home in a former army base now used by Kurdish refugees, injuring four people. The targets of the attacks were not immediately clear.

Also Thursday, saboteurs damaged oil pipelines at separate sites in Iraq’s north and south while insurgents gunned down an officer with the state-run oil company. The attacks did not cut exports.

Insurgents who have been kidnapping foreigners in Iraq and threatening to kill them have won victories in recent days in their efforts to pressure foreign governments and companies to pull out of the country.

A Saudi company employing an Egyptian driver held hostage said it would stop work here to win his freedom.

Faisal al-Naheet, owner of the unidentified Saudi company employing the kidnapped Egyptian, told the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera late Wednesday that his company “will stop our work in Iraq in order to save the life of the hostage who works for us as a driver.”

It was unclear if al-Naheet meant the company was about to leave Iraq or was awaiting developments in the hostage’s case before withdrawing.

Al-Naheet said the kidnappers also were demanding a $1 million ransom in exchange for the hostage, 42-year-old Alsayeid Mohammed Alsayeid Algarabawi, but he said the company would not pay.

The move came after the Philippines said it had begun withdrawing its small peacekeeping contingent from Iraq early, apparently in to the demand of kidnappers threatening to kill captive Filipino truck driver Angelo dela Cruz.

Another militant group headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed one of two Bulgarian truck drivers it was holding hostage, the Bulgarian government confirmed Wednesday. In a video shown on Al-Jazeera early Wednesday, the group, which had demanded the release of Iraqi detainees, said it would kill the second man in 24 hours. The deadline passed with no word on his fate.

Since taking power more than two weeks ago, Allawi’s government has made it clear it intended to crack down on the insurgency, which has greatly hampered efforts to rebuild and recover after war and years of sanctions.

On Wednesday, a statement posted on a Web site, purportedly from al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for a mortar attack near Allawi’s home last week and said the militants would continue to pursue Allawi.

“We are after you,” the statement said.

Elsewhere, two U.S. soldiers were killed and two others injured after their vehicle rolled over on a road in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said in a statement Thursday