A suicide bomber dressed as a policeman blew himself up at the heavily guarded headquarters of a feared commando unit in Baghdad yesterday, killing five people, police said.
Separately, US soldiers clashed with armed Iraqis early yesterday in Baghdad, killing two of the Iraqis and wounding two others, the military said. Iraqi police said the victims were security guards mistakenly killed by the Americans.
The attack at the two-story headquarters of the Wolf Brigade follows weeks of accusations against the Shiite Muslim-dominated force by Sunni Arab leaders, who have accused it of kidnapping and killing Sunnis, including clerics.
It was unclear how the attacker managed to enter the tightly guarded compound in eastern Baghdad's Bab Sharqi neighborhood with his explosives being undetected. But by apparently being dressed in police uniform, the attacker may have managed to avoid the stringent checks in place.
People entering the compound, which also houses the 10-story Interior Ministry building, must go through metal detectors and be frisked by policemen who also have sniffer dogs before arriving at the building.
Major Falah al-Mahamdawi said the attacker was disguised as a policeman and detonated explosives at the Wold Brigade headquarters.
"I was inside the headquarters building when the explosion took place," al-Mahamdawi said. "Then I saw five dead bodies lying on the ground plus seven injured people, most of them are policemen."
The brazen attack comes amid a time of Shiite-Sunni wrangling over the future role of Iraq's minority Sunni population in the country's political process.
Sunnis once enjoyed greater privilege under Saddam Hussein before the former dictator was ousted two years ago. The rise to power of Iraq's majority Shiite community and the US-allied Kurds has riled Sunnis. This is believed to be a major factor in the continuing insurgency in Iraq that has killed more than 900 people since the new Shiite-led government was announced April 28.
In another attack in Baghdad, 10 people were killed late Friday when a car bomb exploded outside a falafel restaurant in Baghdad, Dr. Ali Khazim of Nour Hospital said yesterday. Two children were among the dead, while another 28 were wounded.
Separately, two Oil Ministry employees were shot dead early yesterday in Baghdad's southern Dora district, police official Rasol Salih said. A third man was critically wounded and taken to hospital.
The bodies were found in a canal under a footbridge and one of the slain men was seen handcuffed and wearing civilian clothes, according to footage taken by Associated Press Television News.
A bomb exploded in a cemetery in the southern city of Najaf early yesterday, killing two Iraqis, including and 8-year-old girl.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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