17 killed, 33 wounded in suicide bombing west of Baghdad
KHALDIYAH, Iraq -- Bombers targeted police stations in a series of attacks yesterday and early today, killing at least 26 people and injuring dozens. The most devastating attack occurred in Khaldiyah yesterday. A suicide bomber detonated a vehicle crammed with explosives outside the main police station in this village west of Baghdad, killing at least 17 people and wounding 33, some critically.
Thick black smoke visible for miles rose from the blast site in front of the two-story main station, with pools of blood, shards of glass, and charred pieces of clothing strewn about the street. A stone wall absorbed most of the force and most of those killed seemed to have been Iraqi police officers posted as guards, as well as street sweepers, keepers of small food stalls, and passersby.
"There were some bodies of police, but most were just people going about their lives," said Mohamed Hameed, a witness. "This is just a poor village."
This morning, a car bomb ripped through the Zuhour police station in Husseiniyah, 18 miles north of Baghdad. At least nine people died. A second car bomb exploded outside a police station in Baghdad, injuring at least seven people, police said. That explosion, at the Amiriyah criminal investigation department in Baghdad, happened after police found and defused a car bomb at another post in the neighborhood.
No Americans were injured in any of the bombings, according to the US military.
In Khaldiyah, as Army troops set up a security perimeter, a crowd of Iraqi men thumped their chests and shouted: "Saddam, we pledge our lives to you! Saddam, we pledge our blood to you!"
The attack took place hours before it was announced that US troops had captured Saddam Hussein the previous evening in a village near Tikrit. Khaldiyah is roughly halfway between Ramadi and Fallujah in the Sunni Triangle, a region where there remains fierce support for the ousted dictator.
Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Swisher, in command at the scene, said the attack seemed to be the work of a suicide bomber who approached the police station in a car full of explosives.
The mangled remains of a vehicle lay outside the wall surrounding the structure. A hospital official in the nearby city of Ramadi put the toll at 21 killed and more than 20 wounded.
The attacks were the latest against a police station as insurgents target Iraqi forces perceived as puppets of the United States.
In a separate attack yesterday, an American soldier was killed while trying to disarm a bomb south of Baghdad. The device had been placed on a telephone pole next to the road near Haswah, 25 miles south of Baghdad. The soldier approached the bomb to disarm it when it exploded. He was the 453d soldier to die in Iraq, according to Department of Defense statistics.
Material from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in compiling this report.
