Region | Iraq
Curfew slapped on Baqouba after governor survives suicide attack
Iraqi authorities imposed a curfew on the capital of Diyala province yesterday after the governor survived a suicide attack that left the bomber's body parts scattered across the street.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:59 August 12, 2008
- Iraqi soldiers and police and US soldiers tend to injured Iraqis at the site of a suicide bomb attack in central Baqouba in Diyala province.
- Image Credit: Reuters
Baqouba, Iraq: Iraqi authorities imposed a curfew on the capital of Diyala province yesterday after the governor survived a suicide attack that left the bomber's body parts scattered across the street.
Two people were killed and seven wounded when the attacker detonated an explosive vest near the convoy carrying Diyala Governor Ra'ad Rasheed in the provincial capital Baqouba, 65km northeast of Baghdad. Rasheed was unharmed.
Diyala has been the scene of a two-week-old crackdown by US-backed Iraqi forces against Sunni Arab Al Qaida and other militants, who frequently employ suicide bombing as a tactic.
As violence in Iraq has dropped to levels not seen since 2004, the ethnically and religiously mixed province is considered one of the last remaining sanctuaries for Al Qaida.
The explosion near the provincial government headquarters scattered the bomber's body parts across the street, while a man lay lifeless by the roadside, a Reuters photographer who was in Baqouba at the time of the blast reported.
An American bomb-disposal robot probed the area after the attack, while Iraqi and US soldiers tended to wounded Iraqis before they were taken to a hospital.
"I condemn this terrorist attack that targeted us. And this is not the first attempt," Rasheed told Reuters. "It is not going to sway us from continuing our course of imposing security through operation 'Good Omen'."
Many recent attacks in the province have been carried out by female suicide bombers, a tactic used increasingly by Al Qaida this year. It was not immediately clear whether Tuesday's attacker was male or female.
Fighters fleeing cities
Iraqi forces, backed by US soldiers and helicopters, launched the crackdown last month in Diyala, searching homes, confiscating weapons and detaining scores of people. At least 370 people have been arrested so far, police say.
The Iraqi government said on Monday it was calling a pause in the operation for a few days to allow militants to surrender. But Major-General Mark Hertling, who commands US forces in northern Iraq, said US soldiers would press on.
Hertling said on Monday that crackdowns in Diyala over the last year had pushed many militants into the countryside.
"We must capture or kill the hardcore terrorists that are residing now out in the hinterlands," he said.
Hafith Abdul Aziz, the province's deputy governor for administrative affairs, said the curfew came on the heels of the sacking of Diyala's regional police chief on Monday.
"Security forces have fanned out in the streets," he said.
Washington is pressuring the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to match recent security improvements with progress in reconciling rival political factions.
Yet US ambitions for political progress in Iraq faced a setback last week when parliament adjourned for its summer break without passing a law that would have allowed officials to move towards holding provincial elections scheduled for October 1.
The elections are seen as important in healing Iraq's sectarian divides, especially with the Sunni Arab minority. But the election law has been held up by wrangling with another minority, the Kurds, over power in the city of Kirkuk.
The sharp drop in bloodshed has led surrounding nations to re-engage with Al Maliki's Shiite-led government, which long complained of a lack of support from Iraq's Arab, mostly Sunni, neighbours.
Hezbollah-link: Suspects arrested
Nine suspected members of a pro-Iranian insurgent group have been arrested in a predominantly Sunni area of the Iraqi capital, the US military said yesterday.
"Intelligence sources led coalition forces to the location of a suspected Kataib Hezbollah associate believed to be in control of at least one terrorist cell" operating in the southern city of Basra, it said in a statement.
It said the man and three others were detained in operations carried out late Monday and early yesterday in the northern district of Adhamiyah.
In two other operations in the same area, five more Shiite men were captured with weapons and electronic equipment used to launch improvised rocket-assisted mortars, the military said.
One man detained was allegedly designing websites for Kataib Hezbollah, to publicise their attacks on Iraqi and US forces.
In a statement on Al Manar television Kataib Hezbollah has said its main aim was to drive US and British troops out of Iraq.
- AP
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