From the website: www.canada.com/news/
Suicide bomber kills dozens in attacks on security forces in Iraq
Chris Tomlinson
Canadian Press
Thursday, November 10, 2005
BAGHDAD (AP) - Bombers killed 42 people at a Baghdad restaurant favored
by police and an army recruiting center to the north, while Iraqi
troops along the Iranian border found 27 decomposing bodies,
unidentified victims of the grisly violence plaguing the country.
In the deadliest bombing in Baghdad since Sept. 19, a suicide bomber
blew himself up in a restaurant Thursday morning when officers usually
stop in for breakfast. Police Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said 35
officers and civilians died and 25 were wounded.
Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in an Internet posting that it staged the
attack in retaliation for U.S. and Iraqi operations near the Syrian
border. Earlier, it claimed responsibility for Wednesday night's deadly
hotel bombings in neighboring Jordan, linking those blasts to the
conflict in Iraq.
Samiya Mohammed, who lives near the restaurant, said she rushed out
when she heard the explosion.
"There was bodies, mostly civilians, and blood everywhere inside the
place. This is a criminal act that only targeted and hurt innocent
people having their breakfast," she said.
There were no Americans in the area, she said. "I do not understand why
most of the time it is the Iraqis who are killed," she added.
The blast was the most deadly since a car bomb ripped through a market
in a poor Shiite Muslim neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of
Baghdad, killing at least 30 people and wounding 38 on Sept. 19.
Witnesses heard two blasts and initial reports said two bombers struck
the restaurant, but al-Mohammedawi later said the suicide attacker
carried a bomb in a satchel and also wore an explosives belt and the
two detonated independently.
Thursday's other big attack came in Saddam Hussein's hometown of
Tikrit, 130 kilometers north of the capital, where a car bomb blew up
in the middle of a group of men outside an Iraqi army recruiting
center. Seven were killed and 13 wounded, police Capt. Hakim al-Azawi
said.
The men were former officers during Saddam's regime, Azawi said.
Last week, Iraq's defense minister invited officers of Saddam's army up
to the rank of major to enlist in the new Iraqi army. It was an
overture to disaffected Sunni Arab ex-soldiers, many of whom joined the
insurgency after the Americans abolished the Iraqi armed forces in
2003.
The bombings came just before British Foreign Secretary Straw arrived
in Baghdad for a meeting with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to
discuss the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.
"This is a very exciting time to visit Iraq: Once more, the country's
people will have the chance to decide who will govern them, and I am
pleased to see that all of the different communities in the country are
taking part," Straw said.
In another sign of the country's sectarian and criminal violence, Iraqi
soldiers found the decomposing bodies of 27 people near Jassan, a town
close to the border with Iran, Col. Ali Mahmoud said.
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