Violence Kills at Least 25 Around Iraq

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Media: The Associated Press
Byline: DAVID RISING
Date: 07 October 2006


BAGHDAD, Iraq_A suicide bomber rammed a police checkpoint in northern Iraq
with an explosives-laden vehicle Saturday, killing 14 people, including some
who died when their homes collapsed in the blast.

The suicide bombing in Tal Afar _ a city cited by President Bush earlier
this year as an example of improving security in Iraq _ was the deadliest
attack on a day when more than two dozen people died in violence around the
country.

Four policemen and 10 civilians were killed when the vehicle detonated after
speeding into the checkpoint, police Brig. Sabah al-Maamari said. Some of
the victims died when parts of nearby homes collapsed from the force of the
blast in the city about 30 miles from the Syrian border.

Separately, more victims of Iraq's Shiite-Sunni violence were found, with
seven bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi troops have
been trying for more than a month to put down sectarian killings in
intensified neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweeps.

One American soldier with the 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, died
Friday near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the military said Saturday.
No other details were given.

In the city of Mosul, gunmen killed a woman who was walking with her
5-year-old son, Mosul police Col. Abdel-Karim al-Jubouri said. The boy was
not harmed, he said.

The U.S. military had predicted a spike in violence with the onset of
Ramadan two weeks ago _ something that the chief U.S. military spokesman
Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said had been borne out.

"Unfortunately, as expected, attacks have steadily increased in Baghdad
during these past weeks," he said Wednesday, adding that the number of car
bombs found and cleared were at an all-time high.

A roadside bomb hit a fuel tanker being escorted by American troops early in
the morning near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, sending plumes of black
smoke into the air. There were no reports of casualties, the U.S. command
said.

Two bodies were fished out of the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad on
Saturday, said police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid. Both had their hands and legs
bound and showed signs of torture _ hallmarks of the sectarian death squads
that roam the capital.

Later in the southeastern suburbs of the capital, the bodies of five more
people who had been shot and handcuffed were discovered, police Cap. Mahir
Hamad Mousa said.

Two workers at a Shiite-run bakery in Baghdad's Mansour district were killed
by unknown gunmen in the early afternoon, said police Lt. Maitham Abdel
Razzaq. The gunmen got out of their car, sprayed the bakery with bullets _
injuring a third person _ and then drove away, he said.

The United States has put increasing pressure on the government of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take action to stop sectarian violence amid deep
divisions within his Cabinet. Sunnis complain al-Maliki is hesitant to take
tough action against Shiite militias because many of them are linked to
parties he relies on.

In a joint statement, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Gen.
George W. Casey, the top American military commander in the country, pledged
to help the government find those behind Thursday's killing of a Kurdish
lawmaker.

Mohammed Ridha Mahmoud and his driver were seized and killed after they left
the northeast Baghdad offices of a government agency that oversees Sunni
mosques. A Sunni Kurdish party blamed the attack on Shiite militias.

"The terrorists who carried out this attack are the enemies of the Iraqi
people, desperate to derail the progress Iraq is making toward freedom and
prosperity," Casey and Khalilzad said in a joint statement.

"Although they killed Mr. Mahmoud, they cannot kill the vision he shared
with the Iraqi people of a stable, secure, and unified Iraq," they said.

Elsewhere around the country, in a two morning raids in the province of
Diyala, an increasingly violent region north of Baghdad, Iraqi forces killed
two al-Qaida suspects and captured 40 others, said Brig. Qassim al-Mussawi,
spokesman for the General Command of the Armed Forces _ the prime minister's
military office.

Five insurgents were captured in a joint U.S-Iraqi operation in Mahaweel, 35
miles south of Baghdad, said police Capt. Muthana Khalid.

Meanwhile, the U.S. command said it had captured 28 suspected terrorists in
a series of nine raids early Tuesday in the Jisr Diyala neighborhood of
southeastern Baghdad.

No names were released, but the military said one of three "high-value"
suspects captured was alleged to be responsible for murders and other
criminal activities, and attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.
 
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