At least 40 killed in Iraq bombings
A double truck bombing tore through a Shiite community near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today, while a series of blasts struck Baghdad in a wave of pre-dawn violence which killed at least 40 people, according to officials.
The attacks provided a grim example of US military warnings that insurgents are expected to step up efforts to derail security gains as the Americans scale back their presence and political tensions rise in advance of national elections next year.
The deadliest blast today was a double truck bombing in Khazna village, just east of Mosul, as the members of a Shiite minority ethnic group called the Shabak, who live there, were still sleeping.
Two explosives-laden trucks went off nearly simultaneously and less than 500 yards apart, killing at least 23 people and wounding 138, according to police and hospital officials.
Those killed were all civilians because the trucks were parked in an alley and not near such targets as a police station.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents who remain active in Mosul and surrounding areas.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene where rescuers searched through the rubble of at least 15 houses which were destroyed. Many of the dead and wounded were sleeping on their roofs because a lack of electricity and the heat made it too hot to sleep inside.
Mahmoud Hussein, 28, said he was asleep on a roof, about 150 yards away from the truck bombs, when the explosion flattened his house.
“If we had slept inside, we would have been killed,” said Mr Hussein, who suffered a head wound from flying debris.
Qusay Abbas, who represents the Shabak minority as a member of the Ninevah provincial council, blamed security forces for failing to secure the area on the northern outskirts of Mosul, which the US has called the last stronghold of al-Qaida in Iraq.
“I blame everyone who wants to divide Iraq, and every sectarian official shoulders responsibility for this crime,” he said.
Today’s bombings are the latest in a line of attacks targeting Shiites. On Friday, a suicide truck bomber devastated a mosque used by another minority, Shiite Turkomen, killing 44 people north of Mosul.
Bombs also continue to strike neighbourhoods in Baghdad despite security gains.
The first bomb today was hidden in a pile of rubbish when it exploded about 5.50am near a group of construction workers drinking tea and looking for day jobs in the religiously mixed neighbourhood of Amil, killing at least seven people and wounding 46, officials said.
About 10 minutes later a car bomb targeting construction workers went off elsewhere in western Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding 35, according to police.
Three bombs also exploded in the mainly Sunni neighbourhood of Azamiyah shortly before 7am, wounding a member of a government-backed paramilitary group, an army official said.
Despite an overall drop in violence in the last two years, the US military has said the security gains are fragile and have urged restraint, particularly among Shiites, to prevent retaliatory attacks which nearly tore the country apart in 2006.
The recent attacks have raised concerns about the ability of Iraqi security forces to contain violence as US combat troops wind down duties as part of a withdrawal plan which would see all American forces out of Iraq by the end of 2011.
The US has said the insurgency is waning, although still capable of pulling off sporadic, high-profile attacks that target primarily civilians and security forces.
On July 9, a total of 56 people were killed in bombings in the northern, mainly Turkomen city of Tal Afar and Baghdad – the deadliest day since the handover.
