Bloody day in Iraq leaves more than 50 dead
Militants strike with bombings in urban areas
BAGHDAD - Bombs killed more than 50 people in Iraq yesterday in the worst violence since US combat troops withdrew from urban areas last week, and American forces released five Iranian officials suspected of aiding Shi’ite insurgents.
US officials said they believe the Iranians, detained in northern Iraq in January 2007, had facilitated attacks on American-led forces but handed them over to the Iraqi government at its request. Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said it was a “good initiative’’ that could encourage dialogue between Washington and Tehran, which are longtime foes.
The Iranian Embassy said it expected to receive the Iranians, described by their government as diplomats. Washington believes they are members of the Quds Force, part of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The carnage within Iraqi borders yesterday was a sign that insurgents remain intent on destabilizing Iraq as the United States shifts its focus to the war in Afghanistan. Attacks are down sharply from past years, and militants have been driven from many strongholds, but they routinely inflict casualties in Baghdad and northern Iraq, a cauldron of ethnic and sectarian tension.
The most lethal attack yesterday was in the northern city of Tal Afar, where two coordinated suicide bombings left women sitting in the street amid torn and bloodied bodies, wailing and beating their chests in grief. Several men crouched and wept into their hands. Others rushed the wounded to ambulances.
In a statement on his website, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq condemned the attacks and said the forces of evil and terrorism were trying in vain to demoralize Iraqi security forces and the civilian population.
Some 130,000 US troops remain in Iraq, but they have a much lower profile than previously and are preparing for a complete pullout by the end of 2011. Iraqi attitudes are mixed. Some Iraqis are rejoicing over the absence of American troops in their streets and a new sense of sovereignty, while others worry that extremists will now have more freedom to operate.
“Our security forces are still weak, with poor intelligence,’’ said Saeed Rahim, a government employee in Baghdad. “Deploying more unqualified troops into the streets does not necessarily lead to better results.’’
The day’s violence began at 6:30 a.m., when a suicide bomber in a police uniform and carrying a radio and a pistol knocked on the door of an investigator in Tal Afar’s antiterrorism police force. When the officer opened the door, the bomber detonated his explosive belt, killing the officer, his wife, and their son, said Major General Khalid al-Hamadani, police chief of the northern Ninevah province.
As people gathered in the aftermath, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt, Hamadani said. The coordinated attack killed a total of 38 people and injured 66. Army Brigadier Abdul-Rahman Abu Raghef said the first suicide bomber was a local resident who had been jailed for one year on suspicion of terrorism and was released in an amnesty in June.
A day earlier, car bombs in two Shi’ite villages near Mosul, another northern Iraqi city, killed 16 civilians and injured more than two dozen.
Haneen Qaddo, a lawmaker representing Shi’ites in the Mosul region, complained about a big security vacuum in the north and said Kurdish forces should withdraw from some areas and allow Iraqi Army units to deploy. Tensions between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds, who run a virtual ministate in part of northern Iraq, are considered a major threat to long-term stability.
Factions are maneuvering for control of Kirkuk, a disputed northern city in an oil-rich area that is seen as a flash point for conflict. Police there said a civilian bystander died in a bomb attack on a police patrol yesterday.
Insurgents also struck Baghdad yesterday, detonating roadside bombs that killed 13 people and injured dozens. Eight died and 30 were injured in coordinated blasts near a market in the Shi’ite district of Sadr City, said Major General Qassim al-Mousawi, spokesman for the city’s operations command center.
Hassan Abdullah, a vegetable salesman, said he heard the first blast and went to see what was happening when a second bomb hidden in trash about 100 yards away exploded.
In Baghdad’s Karrada district, one civilian died in a bomb attack on the convoy of 