Tuesday June 14, 2005
*22 Killed in Explosion Outside Iraqi Bank*
By YEHIA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer
A bomb exploded outside a bank in this northern city Tuesday, killing 22
people, including child street vendors and pensioners waiting for their
checks. In Baghdad, the bodies of 24 men killed in ambushes were brought to a
hospital.
A suicide car bomber also rammed his vehicle into an Iraqi army checkpoint,
killing five soldiers and wounding two others in Kan'an, about 30 miles north
of Baghdad, Iraqi army Col. Ismael Ibrahim said. Two civilians also were
wounded in the attack claimed in an Internet posting by the Ansar al-Sunnah
Army -- affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq.
The U.S. Army marked its 230th birthday Tuesday on a somber note with the
killing of an American soldier in a roadside bombing targeting a U.S. convoy
in southern Baghdad. The military also said two soldiers assigned to a Marine
unit were killed in a similar attack Monday in the western city of Ramadi.
"Today is a day when we reflect on the heritage of the army and those who have
given the ultimate sacrifice, and the latest death in Baghdad is obviously a
sad event on our birthday," military spokesman Sgt. David Abrams said.
At least 1,704 U.S. military members have died since the war began in 2003,
according to an Associated Press count.
The attack in Kirkuk was allegedly claimed in an Internet posting by al-Qaida
in Iraq, and it came as the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister
Ibrahim al-Jaafari received a near overwhelming vote of confidence in the
Iraqi National Assembly on a promise to help restore security to violence-torn
Iraq.
Al-Jaafari's 37-member government, announced on April 28, was approved by a
show of hands in the 275-member parliament.
Although it has made quashing the insurgency its top priority, his government
has been criticized for its seeming inability to stop a wave of attacks that
have killed more than 1,000 people since its inception.
Security forces captured a reported key member of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's
al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group who is accused of building and selling cars
used by suicide bombers, the Iraqi government said Tuesday.
He was identified as Jassim Hazan Hamadi al-Bazi, also known as Abu Ahmed, and
was arrested June 7, the government said. It added that he was part of an
al-Qaida cell run by a man identified as Hussayn Ibrahim.
The spree of killings comes as lawmakers wrangle over how big a say Sunni Arab
Muslims should have drawing up the country's new constitution. The dispute
threatens to further alienate Sunni Arabs, who fell from power after their
patron, Saddam Hussein, was ousted and detained. Sunni Arabs account for most
of the insurgents wreaking havoc across Iraq.
In Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, a bomb killed 22 people, including
child street vendors and retirees waiting for checks outside the Rafidiyan
Bank, said police Brig. Sarhad Qadir. He said another 97 people were injured.
The bomb exploded close to a pedestrian bridge crossing the road in front of
the bank. Children and other vendors selling products from sugar to kitchen
utensils on both the bridge and the road underneath were among those killed.
"I came here to get my wages and I brought my grandson with me who insisted on
accompanying me," said Hussein Mohammed, a 70-year old retired employee of the
Northern Oil Co., his head swathed in bandages. "The bomb exploded as we
queued outside the bank and we were injured and rushed to hospital." The child
survived.
The pavement outside the bank was strewn with rubble and glass from the
building, while several bodies were seen lying underneath wreckage. At least
two cars parked nearby were set ablaze.
Kirkuk is an ethnically mixed oil-rich city where insurgents have routinely
launched deadly attacks apparently seeking to foment ethnic tension.
In Baghdad, the bodies of 24 men -- some beheaded -- were brought to a
hospital, morgue official Ali Chijan said. The men had been killed in recent
ambushes on convoys in western Iraq.
He said two groups of bodies were brought to Yarmouk Hospital late Monday.
Seventeen of the bodies, believed to be all Iraqis, were found near Khaldiyah,
75 miles west of Baghdad, Chijan said.
Some of the bodies had been decapitated and others had been shot in the head,
said Dr. Mohammed Jawad.
Jawad said the bodies might belong to men who have been missing since their
convoy delivering supplies for the U.S. military was ambushed Thursday near
Khaldiyah.
Two were identified as an Iraqi policeman and an interpreter, but it was not
immediately clear who they worked for.
Chijan said the badly decomposed bodies of another seven men, including one
Iraqi and six believed to be "Asians," were brought to the hospital after
being killed in a convoy ambush several days ago. Most had been shot in the face.
The slain Iraqi was identified as Ahmed Adnan, said his cousin, Hussein Ali.
Ali told the AP his cousin worked for the U.S.-owned American-Iraqi Solutions
Group, a large company dealing in Iraqi reconstruction projects, with its
headquarters in Carson City, Nev.
The company later sent the AP a statement saying 11 of its employees were
killed Sunday when one of its five-vehicle supply convoys was ambushed east of
Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, by up to 20 heavily armed bandits firing
from an overpass.
"The attackers used light and heavy machine-guns as well as rocket propelled
grenades to disable three of the five vehicles," the statement said.
The last two vehicles in the convoy escaped the attack, which the company said
was "believed to be the work of bandits operating in the Anbar region and is
not thought to be a terrorist operation."
The highway linking Baghdad to Jordan in the west cuts through volatile Anbar
province, a region notorious for kidnappings, ambushes and bombings.
In announcing the arrest of al-Bazi, the government said he built and sold
remote-controlled bombs used in roadside attacks from an electronic repair
shop in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad.
He sold the bombs for about $18,000 each "and was involved in building suicide
vehicle" bombs and land mines that were used in Balad and Samarra, 60 miles
north of Baghdad, the statement said.
Al-Qaida in Iraq and other extremist Islamic groups have been blamed for many
suicide car bombings, beheadings and attacks.
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