68 die in Basra suicide attacks: Schoolgirls among victims
BASRA, April 21: A series of bomb attacks targeting police in and around Basra in southern Iraq on Wednesday killed at least 68 people, 17 of them children incinerated in minibuses taking them to school
, and wounded almost 100 others as the country sank even deeper into violence.
The coordinated blasts outside three Iraqi police stations in the main southern city at about 7:15am (0815am PST) and another two hours later at a police academy in nearby Zubair were the latest blows to the US-led coalition's efforts to stabilize Iraq in time for the June 30 handover of power.
Two minibuses were caught in the blast at Basra's al-Saudia police station. Ali Abdul-Sadiq, a hospital official, said nine schoolgirls and their driver were killed in one. Eight kindergarten children died in the other.
The coalition also accused insurgents of threatening a ceasefire in the flashpoint town of Fallujah, where 17 Iraqis were killed and three marines wounded during clashes within a 24-hour period despite an uneasy ceasefire.
"Sixty-eight people were killed and 98 others wounded" in Basra and Zubair, 25 kilometers further south, Basra provincial Governor Wael Abdel Latif told reporters. "Most of the victims are policemen and schoolchildren," he said, and warning the toll could rise further as many of the wounded were in serious condition.
He pointed the finger at Osama bin Laden's extremist network. "The attacks have the hallmark of Al Qaeda," he told reporters. Iraq's interim interior minister Samir al-Sumaydai told a Baghdad press conference that five children were among the dead and 28 others were injured.
Four of the injured were British soldiers who control the area as part of the US-led occupation, according to Britain's Ministry of Defence. Two of them were seriously hurt.
Other officials in Basra said most of those injured when the bombs exploded in the north, south and centre of the city were policemen and schoolchildren. Military officials said it was too early to say if the bombings were suicide attacks.
Two car bombs also went off outside the police academy leaving two people dead and at least 10 others hurt. The Basra blasts left craters in the ground and debris of charred vehicles, including a schoolbus, scattered in the streets.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the first blast was followed a few minutes later by a second and then a third explosion. Coalition forces were initially only able to reach the city's Al-Ashar police station because crowds were stoning troops at the other two, said British Squadron Leader Jon Arnold.
Basra has been relatively calm compared to other parts of the country where coalition troops have been targeted in some of the worst clashes since the US-led invasion last year. Coalition officials earlier this week warned of a spectacular attack in the next couple of weeks by insurgents opposing the occupation of Iraq.
The Basra attacks came a day after a mortar strike on a US-run prison left 22 inmates dead. The Baghdad Confinement Facility, which holds 4,500 people detained by US forces since last year's invasion, at Abu Gharib, some 50km west of the capital, has been the target of repeated attacks by insurgents.
In the latest clashes around Fallujah, nine insurgents were killed and three marines wounded during a gunbattle lasting more than two hours early Wednesday in the northwest of the town.
Eight insurgents were also killed during a clash on Tuesday evening, and in a separate incident shots were exchanged by coalition military police and around a dozen insurgents. No casualties were reported. The clashes followed the deaths of 600 Iraqis, according to hospital sources, and scores of US troops in fighting in the town earlier this month.
A cease fire agreement on Monday mediated by civic leaders demanded the hand over of heavy weapons and joint patrols in the town, but the coalition warned that fighting could start at "short notice" if there was little progress.
Officials said the weapon hand over had been "limited" and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rated the chances of a negotiated solution to the stand off as "remote". In Baghdad, a senior military coalition official said: "We're still willing to complete the fight in Fallujah and may find ourselves having to do that."
Only seven Iraqi families who fled the fierce fighting were allowed to return to the city on Wednesday as gunfire was heard. Fifty were allowed to return Tuesday. Meanwhile, a Danish businessman kidnapped in Iraq last week was found dead, the Danish foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
The man was captured by unidentified attackers while travelling with an Iraqi driver and a Dane of Iraqi origin on a road near the village of Al-Taji outside Baghdad. The two others were not taken hostage.
The Danish daily Politiken identified the man as 35-year-old Henrik Frandsen, who was in Iraq to start a water purification and electrical appliance store in the southern city of Basra.
The continued security problems in the run-up to a return to Iraqi self-rule by July 1 have sparked the first signs of a split within the coalition after Spain announced it would withdraw its 1,432 personnel from Iraq by end of May.
Dominican Republic will also call its its 300 troops back. The United States has some 135,000 troops in Iraq, backed by 25,000 soldiers from other countries. -AFP
