BAQUBA, Nov 22: Suicide bombers blew up cars packed with explosives outside two police stations north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 20 people in the latest deadly strikes on Iraq’s US-backed police force.
In Baghdad, a civilian plane operated by global cargo company DHL made an emergency landing after one of its engines caught fire when a SAM-7 missile hit the aircraft. No one was hurt.
And in yet another sign of the chaos that has overtaken Iraq since the US occupation, a rocket was fired at Shia leader Abdul Aziz al Hakim, a leading member of the country’s US-appointed Governing Council, in a Baghdad mosque on Friday, but he was unhurt.
The first of the suicide bombings happened in the town of Khan Bani Saad when a car sped towards a police station and detonated as police opened fire on it, US soldiers at the scene said. Captain Ryan McCormack said six policemen and three civilians were killed.
Minutes later another suicide bomber targeted the police headquarters in the nearby town of Baquba, 65kms north of Baghdad. Seven policemen and two civilians were killed in the bombing.
The death tolls excluded the car bombers and some witnesses said the Baquba attacker was wearing a police uniform as he drove towards the building.
“I was standing on the balcony of the police station as the car was coming towards the building,” said policeman Nazaar Hamzan. “He was wearing a uniform like mine.”
Dead and wounded from both attacks were brought to Baquba’s hospital, where blood was congealed on the floor of the wards. “I was trying to resuscitate a four-year-old girl whose legs were blown off but she didn’t make it,” Dr Sharif Saleh said. A huge crater was blown into the road outside the Baquba police headquarters.
ATTACK ON COUNCIL MEMBER: Mohsen al Hakim, the son of Iraqi Council member Aziz Hakim, said the attackers fired a Russian-made rocket from gardens near the mosque where his father was offering Friday prayers, but it failed to explode. The missile missed its target and wrecked a car parked a 100 metres away. No one was injured.
“It was a terrorist attack on his life by remains of Saddam’s regime and those who want instability in Iraq. They are pursuing the same goals as those who killed Mohammad Baqer al Hakim,” Mohsen al Hakim said in Tehran.
Abdul Aziz had warned earlier this month that Iraq was becoming a hotbed of terrorism that was spilling over into neighbouring countries like Saudi Arabia.
He succeeded his slain brother, Mohammed Baqer al Hakim, as leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) — one of the main Shia groups in Iraq, but which has been criticized by some for its readiness to work with the US-led administration.
In August, Mohammed Baqer al Hakim was killed along with 82 others in a devastating car-bomb blast outside the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf.—Reuters/AFP
