Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media:AFP
Byline:Ammar Karim
Date: 27 August 2006
BAGHDAD, Aug 27, 2006 (AFP) - A string of attacks killed at least 16 people
across Iraq Sunday in the latest challenge to Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki's attempts to bring peace to the bitterly divided country.
A bomb killed at least five people and wounded 15 near central Baghdad's
Palestine Hotel, a security official said. Initial reports said the bomb was
in a minibus driving along Sadun Street when it exploded.
A suicide bomber in a van also targeted the Iraqi state-owned daily Al-Sabah
by blowing up the vehicle in the parking lot, killing at least two people
and wounding 25, an employee said.
It was the second attack on the newspaper in three months.
"Two people were killed and 25 others wounded. They all were employees of
the newspaper," Karim al-Rubaiya, head of Al-Sabah's technical department,
told AFP.
He said guards fired at the vehicle "which the bomber was attempting to
drive fast in the parking lot. As the guards fired at him, he blew up the
van."
"Thank God the blast took place early in the day. There were fewer
casualties as many employees had not reached office yet," Rubaiya said.
The bomb also destroyed nearly 20 cars owned by newspaper staff.
Television pictures showed mangled vehicles and debris from the building
strewn across the parking lot.
Gunmen also killed four of former Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Abd Mutlaq
al-Juburi's bodyguards in an ambush on their car in Baghdad's Ameriyah
neighbourhood, a security official said.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk four Kurdish policemen -- including a
young police academy graduate on his way to meet his fiancee to arrange
their wedding -- were killed by alleged Sunni extremists.
"The policemen were travelling in a car when they were stopped on the
highway between Kirkuk and Tikrit by unidentified gunmen. The four were shot
dead," said Kirkuk police Captain Faras Mahmoud.
Abdullah Khir Allah told AFP his 21-year-old son Mohammed had just qualified
as a policeman and was travelling south from the Kurdish town of Arbil to
the city of Samarra to see his future bride.
Three colleagues accompanied him as escorts, but when they neared Tikrit --
ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's hometown -- the Kurdish Shiite officers
were ambushed by suspected Sunni Arab insurgents.
"We worked so hard to bring him up. His mother was so busy with him until he
went to the academy, and he was to be married," Khir Allah said bitterly,
cursing the attackers and accusing US troops of failing to provide security.
In Kirkuk itself, a suicide car bomber blew himself up near the office of
President Jalal Talabani's party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing
one guard and wounding 16 party members, police said.
The bomber rammed the fence of the office and detonated the bomb, which also
damaged 12 other vehicles.
Last week the party's office in Mosul was similarly targeted, killing eight
Peshmerga militiamen guarding the building and wounding 51.
Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed town and a centre of the Iraqi oil industry, has
seen a number of insurgent attacks in recent months.
Sunday's attacks were yet another reminder of the violence that Iraqi health
officials say kills at least 100 people daily.
They came one day after Maliki's peace initiatives were boosted when
hundreds of Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders signed a "pact of honour" to
quell the raging sectarian violence.
Since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra on February 22, Iraq
has been engulfed in tit-for-tat Shiite-Sunni bloodshed that has killed
thousands and pushed it to the brink of full civil war.
In a bid to curb the civil strife, Maliki on Saturday secured a pledge from
tribal chiefs that Iraq would never be free of military occupation unless
the two communities unite to quell the raging violence.
"Iraq cannot be built by violence, but through serious dialogue. Liberating
our country from the presence of foreign forces cannot be done without unity
and national consensus," he told delegates.
"This cannot be done without the role of tribes which represent the fabric
of Iraq... A tribe should play an essential role in confronting terrorism
and shut the doors to sectarian violence," Maliki said.
Byline:Ammar Karim
Date: 27 August 2006
BAGHDAD, Aug 27, 2006 (AFP) - A string of attacks killed at least 16 people
across Iraq Sunday in the latest challenge to Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki's attempts to bring peace to the bitterly divided country.
A bomb killed at least five people and wounded 15 near central Baghdad's
Palestine Hotel, a security official said. Initial reports said the bomb was
in a minibus driving along Sadun Street when it exploded.
A suicide bomber in a van also targeted the Iraqi state-owned daily Al-Sabah
by blowing up the vehicle in the parking lot, killing at least two people
and wounding 25, an employee said.
It was the second attack on the newspaper in three months.
"Two people were killed and 25 others wounded. They all were employees of
the newspaper," Karim al-Rubaiya, head of Al-Sabah's technical department,
told AFP.
He said guards fired at the vehicle "which the bomber was attempting to
drive fast in the parking lot. As the guards fired at him, he blew up the
van."
"Thank God the blast took place early in the day. There were fewer
casualties as many employees had not reached office yet," Rubaiya said.
The bomb also destroyed nearly 20 cars owned by newspaper staff.
Television pictures showed mangled vehicles and debris from the building
strewn across the parking lot.
Gunmen also killed four of former Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Abd Mutlaq
al-Juburi's bodyguards in an ambush on their car in Baghdad's Ameriyah
neighbourhood, a security official said.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk four Kurdish policemen -- including a
young police academy graduate on his way to meet his fiancee to arrange
their wedding -- were killed by alleged Sunni extremists.
"The policemen were travelling in a car when they were stopped on the
highway between Kirkuk and Tikrit by unidentified gunmen. The four were shot
dead," said Kirkuk police Captain Faras Mahmoud.
Abdullah Khir Allah told AFP his 21-year-old son Mohammed had just qualified
as a policeman and was travelling south from the Kurdish town of Arbil to
the city of Samarra to see his future bride.
Three colleagues accompanied him as escorts, but when they neared Tikrit --
ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's hometown -- the Kurdish Shiite officers
were ambushed by suspected Sunni Arab insurgents.
"We worked so hard to bring him up. His mother was so busy with him until he
went to the academy, and he was to be married," Khir Allah said bitterly,
cursing the attackers and accusing US troops of failing to provide security.
In Kirkuk itself, a suicide car bomber blew himself up near the office of
President Jalal Talabani's party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing
one guard and wounding 16 party members, police said.
The bomber rammed the fence of the office and detonated the bomb, which also
damaged 12 other vehicles.
Last week the party's office in Mosul was similarly targeted, killing eight
Peshmerga militiamen guarding the building and wounding 51.
Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed town and a centre of the Iraqi oil industry, has
seen a number of insurgent attacks in recent months.
Sunday's attacks were yet another reminder of the violence that Iraqi health
officials say kills at least 100 people daily.
They came one day after Maliki's peace initiatives were boosted when
hundreds of Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders signed a "pact of honour" to
quell the raging sectarian violence.
Since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra on February 22, Iraq
has been engulfed in tit-for-tat Shiite-Sunni bloodshed that has killed
thousands and pushed it to the brink of full civil war.
In a bid to curb the civil strife, Maliki on Saturday secured a pledge from
tribal chiefs that Iraq would never be free of military occupation unless
the two communities unite to quell the raging violence.
"Iraq cannot be built by violence, but through serious dialogue. Liberating
our country from the presence of foreign forces cannot be done without unity
and national consensus," he told delegates.
"This cannot be done without the role of tribes which represent the fabric
of Iraq... A tribe should play an essential role in confronting terrorism
and shut the doors to sectarian violence," Maliki said.