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| June 16, 2005 | Thursday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 8, 1426 |
40 killed in Iraq attacks
BAGHDAD, June 15: More than 40 people were killed in an upsurge of attacks in Iraq on Wednesday. The dead included 23 people who were killed at an Iraqi army canteen. The killings overshadowed the release of an Australian hostage, who was freed in a surprise raid after 47 days in captivity.
The canteen, at an army base in Khales, northeast of Baghdad, suffered the fiercest attack of the day when a man wearing an Iraqi army uniform blew himself up at lunch time.
Twenty-three people were killed and 29 wounded, most of them soldiers, said local council member Samira Shibli.
Hours later, eight policemen were killed and vehicles left ablaze in a second attack, when a bomber targeted their patrol in southern Baghdad.
Five civilians also died and six were wounded when two mortar rounds slammed into a Baghdad neighbourhood later in the day.
In northern Iraq, a mortar attack killed seven Iraqis, including two policemen and a woman, in the restive town of Tal Afar. Another 15 people were wounded as the mortar round landed close to police headquarters.
The Al Qaeda-linked group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the canteen attack, in an Internet statement whose authenticity could not be verified.
“Our brother was invited to lunch. We pray to God that he finished his meal in paradise,” it said, adding that the attack was carried out to avenge the detention of women prisoners by Iraq’s interior ministry and US-led forces.
HOSTAGE’S RELEASE: Australian hostage Douglas Wood’s release came four days after French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter Hussein Hanun were freed. —AFP
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