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January 2, 2008
Suicide Bombing Kills 7 North of Baghdad
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:37 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide bombing Wednesday in the city of Baqouba killed
seven people and wounded 22, police said, while authorities increased the
death toll from a Baghdad suicide attack at a funeral the previous day to
36.
The bombings were a reminder of the dangers that persist despite the recent
decline in violence in Iraq -- and of the peril for mass gatherings in a
country where the bereaved often find themselves targets.
In Wednesday's attack, the bomber detonated his explosives near a hospital
in the center of the city, the capital of volatile Diyala province, 35 miles
northeast of Baghdad, said police Col. Raghib al-Omari.
The dead included a policeman and two members of a U.S.-backed armed
volunteer group, the Brigades of 1920s Revolution, a police officer said.
The volunteer groups -- predominantly Sunni tribal groups known as Awakening
Councils who have turned against al-Qaida and are paid by the U.S. military
to protect their areas -- have been credited with contributing to an overall
decline in violence by 60 percent since June.
But the rapidly expanding movement, singled out by Osama bin Laden in a
recently released audio message as a ''disgrace and shame,'' is increasingly
becoming a target. On Monday, a suicide bomber targeting Awakening Council
members killed 12 people in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad.
In the capital, relatives wept outside a hospital as the remains of victims
from Tuesday's bombing -- the deadliest in Baghdad since August -- were
placed into coffins. Police increased the death toll by four to 36, and said
37 people had been wounded.
The attacker detonated his explosives amid men gathered in Baghdad's eastern
Zayouna neighborhood for the funeral of Nabil Hussein Jassim, a retired
Iraqi army officer who was one of 14 people killed last week in a car
bombing blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq.
''At the end of a three-day mourning period, a terrorist blew up himself in
the mourning tent, leaving bodies scattered,'' one of the wounded men, who
gave his name only as Abu Hasanain, told AP Television News from his bed in
al-Kindi Teaching Hospital.
In the same neighborhood, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded
six people Wednesday -- three police and three civilians, a police officer
said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release
information.
To the north in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, police said they
detained a senior local al-Qaida fighter in a joint operation with police
from nearby Tikrit.
The suspect, Adnan Khalil al-Faraj, is believed to be a senior al-Qaida
military commander for Mosul and Tikrit, said Brig. Abdul Kareem al-Jubori
of Nineveh province's police.
Despite continuing attacks, there has been a noticeable decrease in violence
across the country, compared with late 2006 and early 2007, when many feared
Iraq was heading toward civil war.
Separately, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday that
negotiations are expected to begin in mid-January between Iraq and Iran over
the cleaning up the strategic Shatt el-Arab waterway.
Talks will focus on removing soil that has eroded into the Iraqi side of the
waterway, dredging out sunken ships and removing land mines left over from
the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, said Sami al-Askari.
No date has been set for the meeting, but it is expected to take place this
month, al-Askari said. Talks will not involve renegotiating the border
through the disputed waterway, which runs between Iran and Iraq and leads to
the Persian Gulf.
The waterway provides Iraq with its only outlet to the sea, and tensions
have flared sporadically between the two countries over its delineation.
Suicide Bombing Kills 7 North of Baghdad
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:37 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide bombing Wednesday in the city of Baqouba killed
seven people and wounded 22, police said, while authorities increased the
death toll from a Baghdad suicide attack at a funeral the previous day to
36.
The bombings were a reminder of the dangers that persist despite the recent
decline in violence in Iraq -- and of the peril for mass gatherings in a
country where the bereaved often find themselves targets.
In Wednesday's attack, the bomber detonated his explosives near a hospital
in the center of the city, the capital of volatile Diyala province, 35 miles
northeast of Baghdad, said police Col. Raghib al-Omari.
The dead included a policeman and two members of a U.S.-backed armed
volunteer group, the Brigades of 1920s Revolution, a police officer said.
The volunteer groups -- predominantly Sunni tribal groups known as Awakening
Councils who have turned against al-Qaida and are paid by the U.S. military
to protect their areas -- have been credited with contributing to an overall
decline in violence by 60 percent since June.
But the rapidly expanding movement, singled out by Osama bin Laden in a
recently released audio message as a ''disgrace and shame,'' is increasingly
becoming a target. On Monday, a suicide bomber targeting Awakening Council
members killed 12 people in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad.
In the capital, relatives wept outside a hospital as the remains of victims
from Tuesday's bombing -- the deadliest in Baghdad since August -- were
placed into coffins. Police increased the death toll by four to 36, and said
37 people had been wounded.
The attacker detonated his explosives amid men gathered in Baghdad's eastern
Zayouna neighborhood for the funeral of Nabil Hussein Jassim, a retired
Iraqi army officer who was one of 14 people killed last week in a car
bombing blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq.
''At the end of a three-day mourning period, a terrorist blew up himself in
the mourning tent, leaving bodies scattered,'' one of the wounded men, who
gave his name only as Abu Hasanain, told AP Television News from his bed in
al-Kindi Teaching Hospital.
In the same neighborhood, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded
six people Wednesday -- three police and three civilians, a police officer
said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release
information.
To the north in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, police said they
detained a senior local al-Qaida fighter in a joint operation with police
from nearby Tikrit.
The suspect, Adnan Khalil al-Faraj, is believed to be a senior al-Qaida
military commander for Mosul and Tikrit, said Brig. Abdul Kareem al-Jubori
of Nineveh province's police.
Despite continuing attacks, there has been a noticeable decrease in violence
across the country, compared with late 2006 and early 2007, when many feared
Iraq was heading toward civil war.
Separately, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday that
negotiations are expected to begin in mid-January between Iraq and Iran over
the cleaning up the strategic Shatt el-Arab waterway.
Talks will focus on removing soil that has eroded into the Iraqi side of the
waterway, dredging out sunken ships and removing land mines left over from
the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, said Sami al-Askari.
No date has been set for the meeting, but it is expected to take place this
month, al-Askari said. Talks will not involve renegotiating the border
through the disputed waterway, which runs between Iran and Iraq and leads to
the Persian Gulf.
The waterway provides Iraq with its only outlet to the sea, and tensions
have flared sporadically between the two countries over its delineation.
