BAGHDAD, 21 November 2003 — Two suicide bombings killed at least nine people in Iraq as violence continued unabated in the war-torn country yesterday. A bomber killed at least four people in the northern oil center of Kirkuk, just hours after four more died in a car bombing in western Iraq. A US soldier also died as insurgents hit back following a US onslaught.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi policeman was killed in a shooting outside the temporary premises being used by Jordanian diplomats in Baghdad since 14 people were killed in the bombing of the embassy building in August.
The explosion in Kirkuk occurred near the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and also blew out windows in the nearby radio-television station.
Jalal Johar, a PUK official, blamed Ansar Al-Islam, a militant Kurdish group linked to Al-Qaeda, and its allies among other extremist groups and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is one of two ethnic Kurdish parties that have supported the US-led coalition. Both are represented on Iraq’s US-installed Governing Council.
A schoolmistress and three pupils were among those confirmed dead after the bomber blew up a pickup truck crammed with explosives at a checkpoint near the offices of the two main Kurdish factions in Kirkuk.
Another 37 people were wounded, seven of them critically, said the director general of Kirkuk General Hospital, Hashem Mohammed. Most were children attending school just 200 meters from the bomb site, he added.
The bombing came hours after a car bomb exploded outside the Ramadi home of Sheikh Amer Ali Suleiman, a tribal leader close to the Americans. Hospital workers in the city, about 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, said four people were killed.
One US soldier was killed and two were wounded when a military convoy was hit by a roadside bomb east of the town, a coalition spokesman said.
The flurry of violence around Ramadi came after US commander Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack announced Tuesday that he was so impressed by the growing calm in the once flashpoint town that he was considering pulling his troops out by year-end.
US officials also revealed that they had fought off a major attack on a US civilian convoy in the town of Samarra north of the capital on Wednesday, using helicopters and tanks to kill 10 assailants.
The renewed unrest followed a massive US onslaught on the insurgents in recent days that included two military operations in the capital and in north-central Iraq.
Tuesday night saw the heart of the capital hit from the air for the first time since the coalition’s spring invasion.
Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey yesterday hailed a 70 percent reduction in attacks in the Baghdad region following the week-long operations. He defended the use of massive firepower including tank-buster aircraft and helicopter gunships.
“I want the enemy to know that although I am on his turf, I won’t let him use it,” he said.
