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Suicide attacks kill 12 in Baghdad

Iraqi youths paste posters denouncing terrorism on a wall in central Baghdad yesterday. The posters show two Iraqis praying and a slogan that reads: ``Our faith is stronger than the belief of reprobates.'' The posters are meant to be a response to al-Qaeda's declaration of all-out war on the ``Rafidha'' (a pejorative term for Shiites). PHOTO: AFP

Two suicide car bomb attacks in eastern Baghdad killed a total of 12 Iraqis and wounded 15 yesterday, police said.

The deadliest one hit a police patrol near the Oil Ministry, killing nine Iraqis and wounding nine, police said. The attack occurred on Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad, about 400m from the ministry, said police Captain Nabil Abdul Qadir. The dead included five policemen and four civilians, and the wounded four policemen and five civilians, he said.

Earlier in the day, a suicide car bomb exploded near a convoy of private security contractors in another part of eastern Baghdad, killing three Iraqi bystanders and wounding six others, said police Major Mohammed Yunis.

Insurgents also bombed a pipeline near Kirkuk early yesterday, sending plumes of black smoke and fire up into the air.

Several employees in the Ministry of the Interior have been arrested for allegedly helping insurgents in the planning of attacks on security forces, the Al-Sabah newspaper reported yesterday quoting Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Asadi.

The report however gave no details as to the number and the seniority of the persons in question.

According to al-Asadi, the suspects provided information on the activities of policemen, and where volunteers gathered for their duties with the police and army.

Meanwhile, Iraqis yesterday began picking up copies of the draft constitution that they will vote on next week, after the Shiite-led parliament ended a bitter dispute with Sunni legislators about how the referendum will be conducted.

Like other Iraqis, Lamia Dhyab got her copy at the small shop where she presents her ration card each month to get government-subsidized food for her family.

"We are going to read the draft constitution. If we like it, we will vote yes. If we don't, we'll say no," Dhyab said.

She was lined up with others in her neighborhood of Dora, a southern part of Baghdad that has been hard hit by insurgent attacks.

Under US and UN pressure, parliament on Wednesday reversed its electoral law changes, which would have ensured passage of the new constitution in the Oct. 15 referendum, but which the UN called unfair.

Sunni Arab leaders who had threatened a boycott because of the changes said they were satisfied with Wednesday's reversal and are now mobilizing to defeat the charter at the polls. But some warned they could still call a boycott to protest major US offensives launched over the past week in western Iraq.

In related news, Iran has denied British accusations that it supplied weapons to Shiite militia in Iraq which were used to attack British troops, state media said yesterday.

A British official said on Wednesday that "elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard" appeared to be involved in smuggling armor-piercing explosives and infrared control mechanisms into southern Iraq.

"This is a lie," Foreign Ministryspokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told Iranian state TV. "The British are the cause of instability and crisis in Iraq."

However, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday that new explosives found in Iraq may have come from Iran or Hezbollah.

"What is clear is that there have been new explosive devices used not just against British troops but elsewhere in Iraq," Blair said in a joint news conference in London with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

"The particular nature of those devices led us either to Iranian elements or to Hezbollah," he said. "However, we can't be sure of this at the present time

For his part, Talabani said that an early pullout by US-led troops from Iraq would be "catastrophic."
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