Suicide bomber kills 28 as US hands over Karbala to Iraq
KARBALA, Oct 29: The US military on Monday handed back control of the province of Karbala to Iraqi forces as a suicide bomber killed 28 police in an attack in the restive city of Baquba.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who addressed the handover ceremony, blamed his military leaders for slow progress in taking back control of the country’s war-ravaged provinces.
“Allow me to say that we are late, very late, to reconstruct, to rebuild our forces for reasons that I do not want to mention here,” said Maliki who is under pressure from the US to rebuild his forces faster.
Karbala became only the eighth of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be handed over to local forces by the US-led invading forces.
“We demand that the military and police leadership make more efforts to reconstruct and rebuild the security forces in order to take over control of the rest of the provinces,” Maliki said.
“These provinces are waiting to be secured by their own sons once again.” Washington and Baghdad had hoped that Iraqi forces would take control of most of the provinces this year, and had even declared 2007 the “Year of Security” in Iraq.
Washington’s top officials in Iraq, Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus, said the handover of Karbala was a “positive step towards Iraq’s self-reliance.”
In a joint statement they said the transfer was an indication of the country’s ability to “develop and assume greater responsibility for governing and providing security for the citizens.”
The other Iraqi provinces handed over by US-led invading forces to date are Maysan, Muthanna, Dhi Qar and Najaf in the central and southern regions and the three northern Kurdish provinces of Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah.Maliki on Monday said Iraqi forces would take control of the southern province of Basra, currently under the control of around 5,200 British troops, in mid-December.
His concerns over security were highlighted on Monday when a suicide bomber riding a bicycle blew himself up at the police headquarters in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.
Brigadier General Kudair al-Timimi of Baquba police said the blast killed 28 police and wounded another 21 people, nearly all of them police.
Baquba, the capital of the Diyala province, is one of the most dangerous regions in Iraq, where the US forces are waging a campaign targeting Iraqi freedom fighters.
A top fighter of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Tiba al-Karbuli, was killed on Monday after clashes with police in the western province of Anbar along with his two aides, police said.
Karbuli was the head of Al Qaeda for the western Iraqi region, Colonel Salan al-Gi’ud, a local police officer, said.
In other violence on Monday, four members of a family were killed when a car bomb exploded close to their house in the northern town of Baiji, police said.
The Baquba bombing came a day after 11 tribal leaders from Diyala were kidnapped in Baghdad.
The US military said the tribal chiefs were kidnapped by Arkan Hasnawi, a militant leader who had broken away from Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
The 11 were seized in Baghdad’s northern neighbourhood of Al-Shaab which has a strong militia presence, a security official said, adding the tribal leaders were from a local movement opposing Al Qaeda in Iraq.
In recent months the US military had been supported by tribal leaders and by nationalist former militants in its fight against Al Qaeda in Diyala.
The bombing took the overall Iraqi death toll in October to more than 330.—AFP
