Mass arrests as Iraq tries to calm bombing fears
Iraq arrested dozens of military and security staff today over the Baghdad suicide bombings that killed 155 people, trying to calm anger at its failure to protect people ahead of January elections and the pending US troop withdrawal.
A military spokesman said that 11 army officers and 50 security officials have been taken into custody over Sunday’s bombings – the worst attacks in Iraq in over two years.
The massive blasts at the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad Provincial Administration angered many Iraqis, who questioned how the bombers could have got their explosives-laden vehicles through a area packed with checkpoints and security personnel.
While other suspects have been detained these were the first arrests of security officials.
The military commander and the police chief of Baghdad’s Salhiya district, where the powerful blast occurred on Sunday, were among those arrested.
They were held because they were responsible for protecting the area where the bombings occurred. The spokesman said the investigation will determine whether they were negligent or actually helping the insurgents.
The arrests came as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was sending a senior UN official to Baghdad in response to a request from Iraq’s prime minister for an investigation into a similar suicide bombing of two government ministries in August that killed more than 100 people.
Iraq has blamed an alliance between al Qaida in Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party for the pair of truck bombings on August 19 outside the Foreign and Finance ministries in Baghdad.
Al Qaida’s umbrella group in Iraq claimed responsibility for the August attack and for Sunday’s bombings, raising fears Iraq will return to violence that raged across the country in 2006 and 2007.
Fear of more turmoil has been fuelled by the continued inability of Iraq’s politicians to agree on an election law, throwing into doubt the country’s ability to pull off January’s parliamentary elections on ctime.
