[NYTr] Violence in Iraq kills 56

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters - Oct 9, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0554268320071009?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Violence in Iraq kills 56

By Mariam Karouny and David Clarke

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two suicide car bombs killed 22 people in northern
Iraq on Tuesday in attacks targeting a police chief and a tribal leader
working with U.S. forces, part of an upsurge in violence that killed 56
across the country.

In Baghdad, foreign security guards escorting a convoy of four vehicles
through the city centre killed two women when they opened fire on a
car, the government said.

The spate of attacks across Iraq, which also wounded nearly 120 people,
marked one of the bloodiest days during the holy Muslim fasting month
of Ramadan.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has vowed to target officials and Sunni Arab tribal
leaders who have joined with the U.S. military to combat the Sunni
Islamist group, pledging to ramp up attacks in Ramadan, which is
expected to finish on the weekend.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said private U.S. security firm
Blackwater was not involved in the deaths of the two women in Baghdad.
Anger at private security contractors is still high in Iraq after a
September 16 shooting involving Blackwater in which 17 people were
killed.

"There has been an incident, an attack on civilians. Two Iraqi women
were killed," Dabbagh said, adding the company was also not Iraqi, but
declining to give more details.

One witness said the guards fired a warning shot when a car carrying
two women and children pulled out of a side road. But the driver edged
forward and the security guards opened fire.

U.S. embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo, referring to the incident,
said "there may be a contractual relationship" with a U.S.
non-governmental organization (NGO). She did not elaborate.

In the northern town of Baiji, officials said the police chief was
wounded and the condition of the Sunni Arab tribal leader was unknown
after the two suicide car bombings.

"Look at this. Is this acceptable? Does God accept this?" said a youth
holding torn, blood-splattered pages of the Koran outside a mosque hit
by one of the blasts in Baiji.

Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of the capital in Salahuddin province,
is a major oil refining centre fed with crude oil and gas from the vast
fields under the nearby city of Kirkuk.

HOUSES FLATTENED

Outside the mosque, men searched through mounds of bricks for
survivors. Several houses nearby were flattened and two mechanical
diggers shifted rubble, while a crane hoisted huge concrete blocks into
the air.

"We were standing beside the mosque waiting for sunrise. We saw a blue
minibus approaching," the imam of Baiji's Abdullah al-Nami mosque told
Reuters Television. "One of those killed told me earlier that he wanted
to lead prayers tomorrow."

Police said the other bomb was in a pick-up truck aimed at Baiji's
police chief, Colonel Saad Nifous, who was wounded in the blast. Police
and the U.S. military both said the bomb by the mosque had targeted a
Sunni Arab tribal leader.

Police did not immediately have a breakdown of the 22 dead from the two
separate attacks.

"Without question this is al Qaeda in Iraq. It is a known tactic and we
have seen this time and time again," said Lieutenant-Colonel Michael
Donnelly, spokesman for U.S. troops in northern Iraq.

There was confusion about which tribal leader was targeted but both
those mentioned by different police sources were senior members of
Sunni Arab "Awakening" councils in the area.

The councils are based on a model first used in western Anbar province,
where Sunni Arab sheikhs joined with U.S. forces to drive al Qaeda
militants from much of the vast desert region.

Anbar was once the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency and the most
dangerous region for U.S. troops. It has become safer since tribal
leaders organized young men into police units.

U.S. President George W. Bush has lauded improved security in Anbar as
an example of what could happen elsewhere in Iraq, while the U.S.
military has said similar councils are taking root in other provinces
such as Salahuddin.

The military blames al Qaeda in Iraq for most mass-casualty attacks in
the country. The group also often claims responsibility for killing
officials and tribal leaders. (Additional reporting by Aseel Kami,
Mussab Al-Khairalla and Dean Yates in Baghdad)

((Writing by Paul Tait, Baghdad newsroom; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)