Suicide bombers killed at least 62 people in apparently coordinated attacks on Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and elsewhere yesterday, less than a week before US troops formally end combat operations.
The bombings also wounded more than 250 people, underscoring how fragile Iraq’s security is, and how tense its political situation, more than five months after an election that produced no outright winner and as yet no new government.
In the southern city of Kut, 150km southeast of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed at least 30 policemen and wounded 87, said Lieutenant Colonel Aziz al-Amarah, commander of the rapid response police force in Wasit Province.
PHOTO: AFP
“Parts of the building collapsed and there are still policemen’s bodies, including the police chief, under the rubble,” Amarah said by telephone.
In Baghdad, a suicide truck bomber killed 15 people and wounded at least 56 others in an attack on another police station, Interior Ministry and police sources said.
Parts of the police station in Baghdad’s northern Qahira district collapsed and surrounding houses were severely damaged, the Interior Ministry source said.
Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi put the death toll at four, with 35 wounded.
In the Shiite holy city of Karbalah, at least 29 people were wounded when a car bomb went off near a police station, a health department source said.
Iraq is on high alert for attacks by suspected al-Qaeda-linked groups following the election, and ahead of the end of the seven-and-a-half-year US combat mission on Tuesday next week.
In Baghdad’s al-Amil district, gunmen killed one policeman and wounded another at a checkpoint. In the mainly Shiite district of Kadhimiya, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded 14 others, a police source said.
In Buhriz, about 60km northeast of Baghdad, gunmen placed bombs near the houses of policemen and raised the flag of al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate on one of the buildings, police sources said. Five people were wounded.
A parked minibus packed with explosives blew up near a police station in Basra, wounding 12 people, police and hospital sources said.
Other attacks in Diyala Province, in Anbar Province and the northern city of Kirkuk brought the overall death toll from the seemingly coordinated attacks to more than 62.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama is to give a major speech to mark the end of US combat operations in Iraq on Tuesday next week, the White House said on Tuesday.
“The president will, of course, be making a speech on the 31st,” said White House spokesman Bill Burton. “Just to short-circuit some of your questions, the venue and time has not yet been determined.”
Asked if the speech would be given in the US, Burton replied: “We’re looking at a range of options,” which could suggest Obama is leaving open the possibility of marking the key moment in Baghdad.
“He’ll, of course, talk about the importance of the milepost that day as we change missions in Iraq,” Burton told a White House briefing in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where Obama is spending his summer vacation.
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