Terrorists continue their attacks in this toilet bowl of a country.
I wonder if George W. Bush sleeps well at night, knowing that thanks to him and his band of war mongrels, thousands of people have lost their lives and tens of thousands have been injured? Sometimes the “cure” is worse than the disease. And as is quite clear by now, and should have been evident to the Bush administration a decade ago, these people cannot be civilized. TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
BAGHDAD – A suicide attacker driving an explosives-packed ambulance crashed through the front gate of an Iraqi guard force headquarters Wednesday, killing at least seven people and toppling a building, officials said.
Along with a suicide bombing a day before that killed 65 people in a crowd of police recruits, the attack shattered a relative calm that had lasted for weeks across Iraq. Both attacks had familiar targets: Militants frequently hit Iraq’s security forces to try to keep the country off balance as U.S. troops prepare to fully withdraw at the end of this year.
In Wednesday’s attack in the eastern city of Baqouba, the ambulance broke through the front gate of the Facilities Protective Services compound, which houses the local headquarters and some training grounds for the Iraqi security force tasked with guarding government buildings.
The vehicle exploded when guards opened fire to try to stop it, ripping down a nearby building, said Maj. Ghalib al-Karkhi, the police spokesman for the surrounding Diyala province. Seven people were killed and 74 wounded, he said.
A number of children from a nearby kindergarten were among the wounded, said Samira al-Shibli, a provincial spokeswoman. She said as many as 15 people had died in the blast. Conflicting accounts are common in the confusion that immediate follows such attacks.
Duleir Hassan, a Diyala provincial councilman who oversees security issues, said the bomber was driving an ambulance. It was not clear how the attacker obtained the vehicle.
About an hour later, another suicide bomber detonated an explosive-packed belt among a group of Shiite pilgrims walking to holy sites to observe a major religious ritual next week.
At least one was killed and 15 were injured, Hassan said. Other officials put the number of dead at two or three.
Among the wounded was the deputy head of Diyala’s provincial council, Sadiq al-Husseini who was overseeing the services offered to the pilgrims.
Shiite pilgrims are favorite targets for Sunni extremist militants who consider them heretics and heathens.
Baqouba is 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad.
Tuesday’s attack took place on the outskirts of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown in north-central Iraq.
Dr. Raied al-Ani, director of Tikrit hospital, raised the death toll in the bombing to 65, with at least 150 wounded. Local officials declared a three-day mourning period.
Hundreds of recruits had gathered outside the targeted police station to be among the first applicants for 2,000 newly created Interior Ministry jobs. Authorities said the suicide bomber joined the crowd, then detonated his explosives-packed vest.
Police also found an unexploded grenade at the scene, indicating the bomber was using other weapons to maximize the blast. Tikrit is 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
No group has taken responsibility, but the attack was in the style of al-Qaida-linked Sunni groups that want to keep fellow Sunnis from joining the security forces.
A statement posted on a militant website by the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, praised the bombing as a “suicide martyrdom” operation but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
The Tikrit bombing infuriated Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who vowed to investigate and bolster the security forces’ abilities.
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Associated Press writers Lara Jakes in Baghdad and Sameer N. Yacoub in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
They were civilized people before US army came and destroyed their country
I believe you mean they were controlled (by Saddam Hussein) – but controlled is not civilized. Saddam Hussein simply exterminated anyone who was a threat to his brutal dictatorship, which lasted from 1979 until 2003; 24 years. By the way, if not for the U.S. – led invasion, Saddam Hussein would have continued ruthlessly destroying his own people; even with the use of chemical weapons, and there is nothing civilized about that.
The U.S. invasion resulted in total anarchy; which exists today, because there is no longer someone with an iron fist in charge of the country. If the people of this country were civilized as you claim, they wouldn’t be blowing themselves up in an effort to destroy the current government. Civilized people simply don’t do that. Of course, it’s always much easier to blame others for one’s shortcomings.