Suicide bomb kills over 100 in Iraq
By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer 28 minutes ago
TUZ KHORMATO, Iraq - A suicide truck bomber blasted a Shiite town north of
Baghdad on Saturday, killing more than 100 people, police said, in a sign Sunni
insurgents are pulling away from a U.S. offensive around the capital to attack
where security is thinner.
The marketplace devastation underlined a hard reality in Iraq: There are not
enough forces to protect everywhere. U.S. troops, already increased by 28,000
this year, are focused on bringing calm to Baghdad, while the Iraqi military
and police remain overstretched and undertrained.
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told The Associated Press
he expected Sunni extremists to try to "pull off a variety of sensational
attacks and grab the headlines to create a `mini-Tet.'"
He was referring to the 1968 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Tet offensive that
undermined public support for the Vietnam War in the United States.
The U.S. military on Saturday also reported that eight American service members
were killed in fighting in Baghdad and western Anbar province over two days,
reflecting the increased U.S. casualties that have come with the new
offensives. A British soldier was killed in fighting with Shiite militias
overnight in the southern city of Basra.
In Saturday's attack - among the deadliest this year in Iraq - the truck
detonation ripped through the market in the farming town of Armili at around
8:30 am, as crowds had gathered for morning shopping.
It demolished several dozen old mud-brick homes and shops, burying dozens of
people under the rubble, and set cars on fire, survivors said.
While residents and police dug through the wreckage for hours, victims were
ferried in farmers' pickup trucks 30 miles to the nearest hospital, in Tuz
Khormato.
Weeping and screaming relatives searched Tuz Khormato's hospital frantically
for word of loved ones. Ali Hussein read the names of victims being moved
further north to Kirkuk for treatment. "My cousin died in the explosion, but I
don't know the fate of my brother," he said in tears.
Abdullah Jabara, deputy governor of Salahuddin province where the town is
located, told Iraqi state television that 115 died - nearly three-quarters of
them women, children and elderly - and blamed al-Qaida. Police gave a similar
death toll, along with more than 200 wounded, though Tuz Khormato's police
chief, Col. Abbas Mohammed Amin, put the toll at 150 dead.
The attack's location suggested it was carried out by Sunni extremists fleeing
the three-week old U.S. offensive centered at the city of Baqouba, 60 miles to
the south on Baghdad's northern doorstep. The sweep aims to uproot al-Qaida
militants and Sunni insurgents using the area to stage car bomb attacks in the
capital.
But U.S. commanders acknowledge that many insurgents fled Baqouba before the
assault, and they may have found easier ground for attacks further north.
"Because of the recent American military operations, terrorists found a good
hideout in Salahuddin province, especially in the outskirts areas in which
there isn't enough number of military forces there," said Ahmed al-Jubouri, an
aide of the provincial governor.
Armili, 100 miles north of Baghdad, is a town of 26,000, mostly Shiites from
Iraq's Turkoman ethnic minority. Residents say tensions are constantly high
with Sunni Arabs who dominate the surrounding villages. Iraqi security presence
is scant in the remote region, near the border with neighboring Diyala province.
"The number of Iraqi police and army in this area is too low. This is a farming
area with a lot of empty areas, so it's neglected. There's not even much
presence of government officials," said Haytham Khalaf, 37, an Amirli resident
whose niece was injured. He accused local Sunnis of helping al-Qaida set up a
presence there.
Extremists hit a similarly isolated location hours before the Armili blast.
Friday night, a suicide car bomber hit a funeral tent in the Kurdish Sunni
village of Zargosh, about 75 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing 22 people.
The U.S. military may be forced to tolerate attacks further north as they focus
on pacifying Baghdad and its surroundings, hoping that calm in the capital will
give the government time to take key political steps. Washington is pressing
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to pass measures to encourage Sunni Arabs to
turn away from support of the insurgency to back the government.
Attacks have fallen in recent weeks in much of Baghdad. Still, a suicide car
bomber blasted an Iraqi army patrol in an eastern commercial district of the
capital, killing five soldiers and a civilian, police said.
Roadside bombings killed five U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Friday and another on
Thursday, the U.S. military said in its latest statements on U.S. casualties.
Two Marines were killed in fighting Friday in western Anbar province, it said.
Dozens of Sunni Muslim sheiks and tribal leaders met Saturday in the western
city of Ramadi, pledging to fight terrorism and restore peace to Anbar province
- for years the heart of the insurgency.
Among them were members of the Anbar Awakening, which was formed in April by
more than 200 Sunni sheiks whose followers are now cooperating with U.S. forces
against al-Qaida and other insurgents. The meeting also called for the release
of security detainees who had not been convicted of crimes and for a bigger
role for their group in representing Sunni interests.
In the far south of Iraq, British troops came under heavy attack by militants
in Basra, killing one soldier and wounding three, the British military said
Saturday.
Britain has withdrawn hundreds of troops from Iraq, leaving a force of around
5,500 based mainly on the fringes of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340
miles southeast of Baghdad. British bases come under frequent mortar attacks
from Shiite militias. The U.S. currently has about 155,000 troops in Iraq.
___
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