A suicide bomber on a bicycle killed 28 policemen at their base in the volatile Iraqi province of Diyala yesterday, police said, in one of the deadliest strikes on Iraq's security forces in months.
The bomber entered the base and attacked a group of policemen -- members of a rapid reaction force -- doing their morning exercises, said Major-General Ghanim al-Quraishi, police chief of Diyala province.
He said details of the bombing were confused because everyone at the scene had been killed or badly wounded.
The police base is in the city of Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, where al-Qaeda and other Sunni Arab insurgent groups as well as Shiite Muslim militias operate.
At least 20 people were wounded in the attack, including a woman and a child, police said.
Mohammed al-Kirrawi, a doctor at the Baqubah general hospital, said most of the victims were struck by iron balls packed with the explosives to achieve maximum casualties.
He said the hospital lacked the necessary equipment to save many of the wounded.
"Among the wounded, there are seven in critical conditions and there is little hope that they will survive," he said.
car bomb
A car bomb in a residential area in the northern Iraqi town of Siniya also demolished two homes and killed seven people, police and health officials said. Eleven people were wounded, they said.
No group claimed immediate responsibility for the Baqubah bombing, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda, which has often used suicide bombers in attacks on Iraqi security forces to devastating effect.
Al-Qaeda has vowed to step up attacks on the security forces as well as Sunni Arab tribal leaders and Sunni insurgents who have allied themselves with US forces in Diyala province to try to root out the Sunni Islamist group.
US and Iraqi forces launched a major offensive against al-Qaeda in Diyala province in June, regaining control of Baqubah and forcing many of the group's fighters to flee elsewhere.
That led to the creation of "concerned citizens groups" modeled on the tribal police units first formed in western Anbar. Tribal chiefs in the area have joined forces with US troops in an attempt to drive al-Qaeda from the province.
Al-Qaeda, however, has proved resilient and US military commanders warn that it still retains the capability to launch devastating attacks.
kidnapping
On Sunday, 10 anti-al-Qaeda tribal sheiks -- seven Sunnis and three Shiites -- from Diyala were kidnapped in a Shiite district of Baghdad while driving back home after a meeting with the government in the capital.
Baqubah's police chief was among 26 people killed last month when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque compound where local Shiite and Sunni Arab leaders were holding reconciliation talks.
The US military has poured 30,000 extra troops into Iraq as part of US President George W. Bush's new Iraq strategy to create a more stable security environment for the country's feuding leaders to reconcile their warring sects.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence between majority Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs since February last year, when bombers blew up a revered Shiite shrine in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad.
The second-ranking US general in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno, said last week that violence had dropped to its lowest level since January last year.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in