Bombers kill 26 in attacks on Iraqi bridges
Truck bombs exploded on three important bridges near Baghdad, killing 26 people and damaging two of the spans in an apparent attempt by insurgents to paralyse road links to the Iraqi capital.
Baghdad: Truck bombs exploded on three important bridges near Baghdad on Friday, killing 26 people and damaging two of the spans in an apparent attempt by insurgents to paralyse road links to the Iraqi capital.
The attacks defy efforts by the US military to smash car bomb cells and are the latest in a series of attacks on infrastructure around Baghdad, where US and Iraqi forces have deployed thousands more troops under a three-month-old security plan.
Police said suicide truck bombers struck police checkpoints on two bridges in a Shiite area south of Baghdad, killing 22 people and badly damaging one bridge. They said 60 people were wounded.
An Iraqi army source said a truck bomb also hit a bridge near the town of Taji just north of Baghdad on the main highway connecting the capital with cities in the north. He said it was quickly followed by a car bomb that killed four soldiers there.
The US military said the bridge was impassable for northbound traffic.
Last month, a truck bomb destroyed the Sarafiya Bridge in Baghdad. Days later a suicide car bomber blew himself up on a ramp leading to another bridge in the capital, which is bisected by the River Tigris.
A police source said eight policemen were among the dead in the attacks on the bridges south of Baghdad, but it was unclear how many casualties were caused by each blast.
Police said the first bomber damaged the old Diyala Bridge. Minutes later, a few kilometres away, another attacker detonated a truck bomb on the new Diyala Bridge.
The two bridges over the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris, are commonly used by Shiite pilgrims on their way to holy Shi'ite cities to the south.
Politicians from both sides of the Shiite-Sunni sectarian divide have accused insurgents of trying to split the capital of seven million people along sectarian lines.
Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has said his security forces will be ready to take control of the country by the end of this year, but Friday's attacks illustrate the challenges ahead in trying to drag Iraq back from the brink of sectarian civil war.
