BAGHDAD – Suicide bombers and other attackers killed at least 62 people in co-ordinated attacks on Iraqi security forces throughout the country yesterday, less than a week before US troops formally end combat operations.
The bombings also wounded more than 250, underscoring the fragility of Iraq’s security and the uncertainty of its political situation more than five months after an election that produced no outright winner and as yet no new government.
The onslaught was launched a day after the US military in Iraq cut its strength to under 50,000 as President Barack Obama, facing a war-weary American public, seeks to fulfil a pledge to end the war launched 7½ years ago by his predecessor.
Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda and former dictator Saddam Hussein’s banned Baath party, and warned of more attacks as US troops end their combat mission on August 31st ahead of a full withdrawal next year.
“It is necessary that our armed and security forces are at the highest levels of vigilance and cautiousness during this sensitive period of Iraq’s history, and take all the required measures to protect the citizens and state institutions and fight terrorism strongly and firmly,” he said.
US military spokesman in Iraq, Maj Gen Stephen Lanza, called the attacks “desperate attempts” to undermine faith in the Iraqi security forces and a sign that al-Qaeda was trying to re-establish itself after suffering numerous setbacks.
The geographic spread of the attacks on the security forces showed that while weakened, the insurgency retains the ability to organise and carry out a nationwide assault, under the noses of the authorities.
In Kut, 150km southeast of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed 30 policemen and wounded 87 after destroying a police station, said Lieut Col Aziz al-Amarah, head of the rapid response police force in the province of Wasit.
“Parts of the building collapsed and there are still policemen’s bodies, including the police chief, under the rubble,” said Amarah.
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 also collapsed and houses nearby were severely damaged, the interior ministry source said.
Baghdad security spokesman Maj Gen Qassim al-Moussawi warned of more attacks as US troops gradually withdraw.
Elsewhere, a car bomb near a police station in the Shia holy city of Kerbala, southwest of Baghdad, and a minibus packed with explosives near a police station in the southern oil hub of Basra, wounded more than 40 people.
In Buhriz, about 60km northeast of Baghdad, gunmen detonated bombs near the houses of policemen and raised the flag of al Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate on a building.
Other attacks in Baghdad, Diyala province, Anbar province and the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, brought the national death toll from the attacks to at least 62. – (Reuters)