Suicide bombers kill 25 Iraqis in new spate of attacks

BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least 25 people, mostly young men volunteering to join the Iraqi army, were killed in three suicide bombings as the United States and Britain weighed up plans to drastically cut their troop presence in the country.

The attacks against an army recruitment centre in Baghdad, a police convoy near Mosul and municipal offices in Kirkuk, both in northern Iraq, also left at least 52 wounded, security officials and medics told AFP.

Five US soldiers were also wounded in Baghdad's southern district of Dura when their convoy of six humvees ran into a roadside bomb, the US military said Sunday.

In the most deadly attack, later claimed in an Internet statement by the Al-Qaeda-linked group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 19 died and 41 were wounded when a suicide bomber wearing a belt of explosives blew himself up in the midst of a crowd of young men seeking to enter an army recruitment centre at Baghdad's Muthana airfield, already targetted in the past by suicide bombers.

"At 9:00 am we were all together waiting to enter the camp. Some people were outside, others were going in. The guards were checking everyone. Then we heard a huge explosion," said Saad Mejid, 19, one of the would-be recruits speaking from Yarmuk hospital.

"We saw body parts flying through the air. There was smoke everywhere. I was hurt in the leg. I couldn't believe what happened. My clothes were covered in blood," he said.

He was still looking for his brother who had gone with him to join Iraq's newly-formed army.

Outside the camp entrance, municipal workers collected body parts in black plastic bags. A nearby wall was covered with blood and specks of flesh.

Several would-be recruits who escaped the blast mingled outside the base a couple of hours after the attack, still waiting to join up.

One, who did not give him name, said he heard shouts and shots just before the explosion as the crowd of volunteers pushed and shoved to enter the camp where they were being frisked by guards.

Because of high unemployment, tens of thousands of young men have been volunteering to join the security forces and hundreds over the past months have fallen victim to bombers who accuse them of collaborating with occupation forces.

On July 2, a bomber wearing an explosives vest blew himself up among a group waiting to join police commandos in Baghdad. Eleven were killed and 22 wounded.

The latest killing of recruits came on the day a British newspaper published a leaked defence ministry document discussing plans by London and Washington to drastically reduce the number of their troops in Iraq next year.

The Mail on Sunday said Washington hoped to hand over control of security to Iraqi forces in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces by early next year, allowing it to slash US-led troop levels from 176,000 to 66,000.

Britain, for its part, was considering cutting its 8,500-strong contingent to 3,000.

"This is but one of a number of papers produced over recent months covering various possible scenarios," a defence ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

In two other suicide attacks Sunday morning, two civilians died and eight were wounded when a bomber detonated a booby-trapped car outside Kirkuk's municipal offices, in northern Iraq. The municipality is controlled by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

And four policemen were killed and three injured when the driver of a pickup truck loaded with freshly-cut hay blew himself up alongside a convoy escorting a police colonel, near Mosul, in northern Iraq, police colonel Saed al-Juburi told AFP.

In other violence, two policemen were injured and four police cars destroyed when a mortar bomb fell on a police station in northern Baghdad.

Two more people were hurt in the centre of the city when mortar fire targetted a PUK office.

A family of nine was found murdered in their eastern Baghdad home, each with a bullet to the back of the head. One child survived, but was said to be in a very serious condition, police said. There was no immediate word on why the family was targetted.

One Iraqi soldier was shot dead while on patrol near Baquba, north of Baghdad, and three more Iraqi servicemen were wounded by a booby-trapped tractor on a road near Tuz, in northern Iraq.

Three Iraqi truck drivers, who were believed to have worked for US forces, were found murdered near Dujail, north of Baghdad.

Two rebels were killed and one injured when a bomb they were placing on a road near Baquba, north of Baghdad, exploded accidentally, the army said.

And the body of the chairman of the Iraqi federation of taekwondo, Ali Chaker, was found stabbed to death after he was kidnapped three days ago south of the capital, police said.

Iraq | Politics | | afp.com