| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"NotBush2004" |
| Date: |
04 Sep 2004 09:36:39 PM |
| Object: |
No news from Iraq must mean it's all good news. |
Suicide bomber kills 20 in Iraq
Associated Press
Saturday, Sep 4, 2004
Kirkuk - A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb Saturday outside an Iraqi
police academy as hundreds of trainees and civilians were leaving for the
day, killing 20 people and wounding 36 others in the latest attack designed
to thwart U.S-backed efforts to build a strong Iraqi security force ahead of
January elections.
U.S and Iraqi forces, meanwhile, launched an operation in another northern
town, Tal Afar, to flush out a militant cell allegedly smuggling men and
arms in from Syria, sparking a fierce gun battle that left at least eight
people dead and more than 50 injured.
South of Baghdad, attackers fired mortar rounds at an Iraqi police patrol,
killing three officers, said Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman of the Interior
Ministry. The attack occurred between the towns of Mahmoudiya and Latifiyah
40 kilometres from the capital.
The car bomb in Kirkuk littered the street with bloodied bodies, gutted
cars, shards of glass and twisted metal. The police academy's steps were
covered in blood.
"I saw one of my friends killed before my eyes. I couldn't do anything to
help him," said Bassem Ali, a student at the academy who was hurt in the
blast.
Kirkuk police put the toll at 20 dead and 36 wounded.
"This is a terrorist act against members of Iraqi police who were going
home," said Kirkuk police Colonel Sarhat Qadir.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Insurgents see police as collaborators with U.S.-led forces and are bent on
disrupting American efforts to build a strong Iraqi security force ahead of
January elections.
Militants have blown up police stations all over the country, gunned down
officers in drive-by shootings and battered police recruitment centres with
mortar barrages and rocket-propelled grenades, leaving policemen
increasingly terrified and deterring potential recruits.
From April 2003 to May 2004 alone, 710 Iraqi police were killed out of a
total force of 130,000, authorities said.
In Baghdad, mortar rounds landed near a convention center where members of
Iraq's 100-member transitional assembly, known as the Iraqi Council,
gathered for a meeting.
Despite the explosions, delegates elected four vice chairmen of the National
Council, which is intended to act as a watchdog over the interim government
of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi until the election.
The Cabinet met Saturday and agreed to allocate more funds to security
operations and rebuild areas damaged by fighting. They also decided to build
up a strategic food reserve able to supply the country for three months, Mr.
Allawi's office said in a statement.
In the latest hostage crisis, Iraqi militants threatened to behead a Turkish
truck driver if his employers and a Kuwaiti contractor don't leave Iraq
within 48 hours, according to a video aired Saturday on the pan-Arab
television channel Al-Arabiya.
The group, calling itself the Islamic Resistance Movement-Al-Noaman
Brigades, released a tape showing a bearded man, purported to be the truck
driver, sitting in front of a black banner bearing the group's name in gold
Arabic characters. It was not immediately possible to verify the tape's
authenticity.
More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped since the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq in March.
France's foreign minister, Michel Barnier, returned home from the Middle
East without winning the release of two French journalists held hostage
since mid-August. But Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said in Paris
that there were signs Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot could be
released soon.
http://tinyurl.com/43b5d
--
They Knew...
Despite the whitewash, we now know that the Bush administration was warned
before the war that its Iraq claims were weak
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/they_knew_0802/
.
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