Attackers Detonate Car Bombs in Baghdad
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Suicide attackers exploded a pair of car bombs outside an Iraqi National Guard compound west of the capital Sunday, wounding American and Iraqi forces, and the U.S. military announced the arrest of a senior Iraqi commander for alleged ties to the insurgency.
The developments underscored the obstacles toward building a strong Iraqi security force capable of taking over from U.S. troops and restoring stability to the country.
The two militants, who died in the blasts, tried to ram two cars loaded with explosives into the base in Kharma, a town on the outskirts of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity. The number of U.S. and Iraqi casualties was not immediately clear.
The attack took place at 9 a.m. and caused serious damage to the main building, said Bassem Abbas, a witness. He added that shortly after the attack, U.S. troops cordoned off the area and prevented people from getting close.
In Baghdad on Sunday, a rocket slammed into a busy neighborhood, killing at least one person and wounding eight, hospital officials and witnesses said.
Hours later, another loud blast shook the area near the Green Zone, site of the U.S. Embassy and the interim Iraqi government. Smoke rose above the zone and alert sirens sounded. It was not clear if anything had been hit.
American troops have staged repeated attacks in Fallujah on sites that the U.S. military says are being used by followers of Jordanian-born terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But U.S. troops have not entered Fallujah since the end of a three-week siege in April that killed hundreds.
The twin blasts in Kharma bring to at least 34 the number of suicide car bombings in September, the highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. As many as seven car bombs have been detonated in a single day this month.
Insurgents have targeted Iraqi security forces because they are seen as collaborators with the Americans and their allies in the interim government.
Brig. Gen. Talib al-Lahibi, who previously served as an infantry officer in Saddam Hussein’s army, was detained Thursday in the province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Al-Lahibi was the acting head of the Iraqi National Guard for the Diyala province, said Maj. Neal O’Brien, spokesman for the Army’s 1st Infantry Division.
The military declined to provide details on the general’s suspected ties to militants waging a 17-month campaign to topple the interim Iraqi authorities and oust coalition forces from the country.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian diplomat pressed an influential Sunni cleric to help win the release of six Egyptian telecommunications workers abducted last week in Iraq. Diplomat Farouq Mabrouk refused to speak to reporters after his 30-minute meeting with Harith al-Dhari, who heads the Association of Muslim Scholars, an organization that has helped win the freedom of foreign captives.
Gunmen abducted two of the Egyptians on Thursday in a bold raid on their firm’s Baghdad office – the latest in a string of kidnappings targeting engineers working on Iraq’s infrastructure. Eight other company employees, four Egyptians and four Iraqis, were seized outside of Baghdad on Wednesday.
More than 140 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq – some by anti-U.S. insurgents and others by criminals seeking ransoms. At least 26 of them have been killed, including two American civil engineers beheaded last week by the Tawhid and Jihad group headed by Jordanian terrorist Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi.
Two senior officials of the Muslim Council of Britain were also in Baghdad to try to win the freedom of Kenneth Bigley, a British civil engineer kidnapped Sept. 16 along with the two slain Americans, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley.
“We will do everything to contact them (the captors) while we are here,” Daud Abdullah, assistant secretary-general of the British council, told reporters after talks at the British Embassy on Saturday.
He conceded, however, that his delegation had not arranged any meetings with Iraqi religious or political leaders and did not know whether they would be able to reach the kidnappers.
“The message is simple, it’s a humanitarian one. … He (Bigley) was a noncombatant, Islam does not endorse the capture of noncombatants, let alone the killing of them,” Abdullah said.
A posting on an Islamic Internet site Saturday claimed al-Zarqawi’s followers had killed Bigley, but the Foreign Office in London said the claim was not credible.
As the British delegation arrived, U.S. warplanes, tanks and artillery repeatedly hit at al-Zarqawi’s terror network in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad.
The strikes targeted two buildings where militants were allegedly meeting and a cluster of rebel-built fortifications used to mount attacks on nearby Marine positions, the U.S. military said. Doctors said 16 people were killed and 37 wounded in Saturday’s attacks.
In other violence, an American soldier was reported killed by a bomb Saturday, and the U.S. military said four Marines died in separate incidents Friday.
In Baghdad, gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying Iraqi National Guard applicants, killing six people, police said. Also Saturday, five mortar shells struck the Iraqi Oil Ministry in Baghdad, shattering windows and causing minor damage to the building, ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.