Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: AFP
Byline:Ammar Karim
Date: 27 August 2006
BAGHDAD, Aug 27, 2006 (AFP) - Iraqi insurgents sent a deadly reply Sunday to
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's attempts to stitch his wounded country back
together, slaughtering 29 people in a series of gun and bomb attacks.
One day after Maliki celebrated winning a promise from tribal leaders to
rein in Iraq's violent factions, bombers targeted the busy heart of Baghdad
and a state-run newspaper seen as friendly to the government.
Just north of the war-torn capital, the province of Diyala was once more the
scene of bloody fighting between rival sectarian death squads: 11 civilians
and a senior army officer were killed and three people were kidnapped.
Insurgents also killed a US soldier in a roadside bomb attack southeast of
Baghdad on Saturday, the military said, bringing the death toll since the
March 2003 invasion to 2,619, according to AFP count based on Pentagon
figures.
As journalists from the state daily al-Sabah arrived for work a suicide
bomber ploughed an explosives-laden van into the parking lot, detonating his
deadly cargo after coming under fire from security guards.
"Two people were killed and 25 others wounded. They all were employees of
the newspaper," Karim al-Rubaiya, al-Sabah's technical editor told AFP.
"Thank God the blast took place early in the day. There were fewer
casualties as many employees had not reached the office yet," he added.
The blast devastated the front of the two-storey concrete office building
and strewed the blackened wreckage of a fleet of cars across the carpark.
In a statement, Maliki's office said the attack was aimed at curbing press
freedom as "the newspaper is a shining example of the media that has opposed
terrorism and worked for the sake of unity."
Later a roadside bomb killed at least five people and wounded 15 in a blast
in the busy commercial heart of Baghdad, near the Palestine Hotel, which was
once famous as a centre for the international media.
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, police said.
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 and detonated the bomb, which also damaged 12
other vehicles. Last week the party's office in Mosul was targeted, killing
eight Peshmerga militiamen guarding the building and wounding 51.
Meanwhile, police spokesman Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf confirmed
that 11 civilians and one army officer had been killed just north of Baghdad
in Diyala province in and around the lawless provincial capital Baquba.
Six civilians, including two women, were slaughtered when a booby-trapped
roadside bomb exploded in a crowded street in Khallas, north of Baquba,
police officers told AFP on condition of anonymity.
In a separate ambush, insurgents shot dead defence ministry official
Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Faisal as he drove betwen Muqdadiyah and Baquba,
officers in the flashpoint city said, they said.
Five more civilians were killed in three separate shootings on highways
around Baquba, while two truck drivers and a former policemen were
kidnapped, police said. Two corpses were also found near the city.
The population in the region just north of Baghdad is mixed between the
bitterly divided Sunni and Shiite communities, and rival armed death squads
are disputing control of the area.
Sunday's attacks were another reminder of the violence that Iraqi health
officials say kills at least 100 people daily, and came one day after Maliki
secured a pledge from Iraqi tribal leaders to quell the fighting.
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.
Byline:Ammar Karim
Date: 27 August 2006
BAGHDAD, Aug 27, 2006 (AFP) - Iraqi insurgents sent a deadly reply Sunday to
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's attempts to stitch his wounded country back
together, slaughtering 29 people in a series of gun and bomb attacks.
One day after Maliki celebrated winning a promise from tribal leaders to
rein in Iraq's violent factions, bombers targeted the busy heart of Baghdad
and a state-run newspaper seen as friendly to the government.
Just north of the war-torn capital, the province of Diyala was once more the
scene of bloody fighting between rival sectarian death squads: 11 civilians
and a senior army officer were killed and three people were kidnapped.
Insurgents also killed a US soldier in a roadside bomb attack southeast of
Baghdad on Saturday, the military said, bringing the death toll since the
March 2003 invasion to 2,619, according to AFP count based on Pentagon
figures.
As journalists from the state daily al-Sabah arrived for work a suicide
bomber ploughed an explosives-laden van into the parking lot, detonating his
deadly cargo after coming under fire from security guards.
"Two people were killed and 25 others wounded. They all were employees of
the newspaper," Karim al-Rubaiya, al-Sabah's technical editor told AFP.
"Thank God the blast took place early in the day. There were fewer
casualties as many employees had not reached the office yet," he added.
The blast devastated the front of the two-storey concrete office building
and strewed the blackened wreckage of a fleet of cars across the carpark.
In a statement, Maliki's office said the attack was aimed at curbing press
freedom as "the newspaper is a shining example of the media that has opposed
terrorism and worked for the sake of unity."
Later a roadside bomb killed at least five people and wounded 15 in a blast
in the busy commercial heart of Baghdad, near the Palestine Hotel, which was
once famous as a centre for the international media.
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, police said.
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 and detonated the bomb, which also damaged 12
other vehicles. Last week the party's office in Mosul was targeted, killing
eight Peshmerga militiamen guarding the building and wounding 51.
Meanwhile, police spokesman Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf confirmed
that 11 civilians and one army officer had been killed just north of Baghdad
in Diyala province in and around the lawless provincial capital Baquba.
Six civilians, including two women, were slaughtered when a booby-trapped
roadside bomb exploded in a crowded street in Khallas, north of Baquba,
police officers told AFP on condition of anonymity.
In a separate ambush, insurgents shot dead defence ministry official
Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Faisal as he drove betwen Muqdadiyah and Baquba,
officers in the flashpoint city said, they said.
Five more civilians were killed in three separate shootings on highways
around Baquba, while two truck drivers and a former policemen were
kidnapped, police said. Two corpses were also found near the city.
The population in the region just north of Baghdad is mixed between the
bitterly divided Sunni and Shiite communities, and rival armed death squads
are disputing control of the area.
Sunday's attacks were another reminder of the violence that Iraqi health
officials say kills at least 100 people daily, and came one day after Maliki
secured a pledge from Iraqi tribal leaders to quell the fighting.
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.