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"Some people were running away but others couldn't
move and the car blew up among them," said Raeder
Mohammed, one of the trainees. "There are still body
parts burning," he said shortly after the attack.
Pictures taken by a photographer for Reuters showed
a completely destroyed large vehicle, possibly a
pick-up truck, with the trunk of a man lying nearby.
The steering wheel, still visible in the wreckage,
appeared to have been modified, possibly to aid
detonation of the bomb. A severed head lay next to
it.
Erbil, one of the main cities in the northern
Kurdish region of Iraq and home to the Kurdish
parliament and its newly installed president, has
been relatively peaceful over the past two years
apart from occasional, spectacular suicide attacks.
In May, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the
offices of a Kurdish political party in Erbil, which
also served as a police recruitment centre, killing
46 people. .
AP -- a suicide car bomber
killed 20 traffic policemen and wounded 100 Monday
outside the unit's headquarters in this northern
Kurdish city, police and hospital officials said.
Iraq's insurgency appeared unfazed by two massive
U.S.-Iraqi military offensives against militant
smuggling routes and training centers west and north
of Baghdad, mounting attacks that have killed at
least 75 in the past two days — including 30 people
on Monday.
The bomber in Erbil was wearing a police uniform
when he slammed his car into a gathering of some 200
traffic officers during morning roll call in a
courtyard behind the headquarters at 8 a.m., police
Lt. Sulaiman Mohammed said.
At least 20 died and 100 were wounded, said Dr.
Mohammed Ali of Erbil Hospital.
The attack occurred on a main street that leads to
the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, which is
50 miles south of Erbil, police said.
Erbil, one of two major cities in Iraq's northern
Kurdish region, has enjoyed autonomous rule under
Western protection since 1991. The area has been
largely sheltered from the incessant violence
wracking the remainder of Iraq, but has seen several
major bombings blamed on militant Muslim groups.
The attack came a day after a suicide bomber walked
into a crowded Baghdad kebab restaurant near the
heavily fortified main gate of U.S. and Iraqi
government headquarters at the Green Zone, killing
at least 23 people — the deadliest attack in the
capital in just over six weeks. A total of 45 people
were killed in insurgent assaults throughout the
country on Sunday.
Most of the suicide attackers are thought to belong
to extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, which
has justified killing other Muslims, including women
and children, in their quest to destabilize the
Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The rate of insurgent attacks has risen dramatically
since al-Jaafari announced his Cabinet on April 28.
At least 1,182 people have been killed since then,
according to an Associated Press count of police,
military and hospital reports.
Some extremists have also started threatening fellow
Sunni Arabs, who make up the insurgency's core,
because some leaders of the minority Muslim sect
have expressed a readiness to join the political
process. Most Sunnis boycotted January's historic
election.
On Monday, Sunni Arabs were expected to name their
representatives to a committee that has until
mid-August to draft Iraq's new constitution. The
number of Sunni members took weeks to negotiate with
the Shiite majority.
Elsewhere Monday, a band of insurgents launched a
bold assault on a Baghdad police station, killing at
least eight policemen and an 8-month-old baby,
police said. At least 23 were wounded.
The attack on the Baya police station in
southwestern Baghdad began just before dawn and
included two car suicide bombs, mortars,
rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire,
police Capt. Talib Thamir said.
Separately, a roadside bomb Monday killed a U.S.
soldier on patrol near Tal Afar, 95 miles east of
the Syrian border, the military said. The soldier
belonged to the 1st Corps Support Command and was
not part of the two major U.S.-Iraqi offensives
taking part in the western Anbar province.
At least one American has died since the new
military campaigns — code-named Spear and Dagger —
began Friday and Saturday, respectively, in Anbar
province. About 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces are
taking part in each offensive.
Operations Spear and Dagger are aimed at destroying
militant networks near the Syrian border and north
of Baghdad, the military said. About 60 insurgents
have been killed and 100 captured so far.
Troops on the ground said they found numerous
foreign passports and one round trip air ticket from
Tripoli, Libya, to Damascus, Syria. They found two
passports from Sudan, two from Saudi Arabia, two
from Libya, two from Algeria and one from Tunisia.
Intelligence officials believe Anbar province is a
portal for extremist groups, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's
al-Qaeda in Iraq, to smuggle in foreign fighters.
Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and
Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile
border with Iraq.
Operation Spear appeared to be winding down and U.S.
Marines reported finding a weapons cache in the town
of Karabilah early Monday, including two dozen RPG
launchers, heavy machine guns and equipment to make
up to 25 bombs.
The dusty town is about 200 miles west of Baghdad
and near Qaim, a city on the Syrian border.
Troops also found a large number of explosives in
the building and conducted a controlled blast,
leveling an entire block, according to an AP
reporter in the town. Many residents had already
left their homes for safer areas and portions of the
town have been reduced to rubble.
U.S. Marines reported killing 15 insurgents Sunday
in battles near Fallujah, the Anbar province town 40
miles west of Baghdad and a perennial insurgent
stronghold.
AP
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