BAGHDAD, 20 July 2004 — Insurgents targeted the Iraqi police again yesterday as the last of the Philippine troops left the country. Kidnappers freed an Egyptian hostage, but there was no word on Angelo dela Cruze for whose freedom Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo withdrew his country’s contingent of 51 peacekeepers.
In southwest Baghdad, a white fuel tanker rigged with explosives plowed into a police station, exploding in flames and killing nine people and wounding about 60 others.
The massive blast leveled car repair garages and other industrial workshops outside the police station in the industrial neighborhood of Seidiyeh. Cars were crushed under concrete, others turned into flaming wrecks. Corrugated metal roofs were twisted and chunks of buildings were scattered hundreds of meters away.
Adding to the mayhem, a British soldier died and two were wounded when their helicopter crashed in the south of the country, and a senior Defense Ministry official was gunned down near his home in the latest high-profile murder.
A ministry spokesman said Issam Jassem Qassim, a director general in the ministry, was killed by three gunmen at around 10 p.m. on Sunday.
Militants have attacked or killed several senior Iraqi officials for cooperating with US-led forces in the country. Last week, a senior official from the Industry and Minerals Ministry was shot dead as he was leaving his home.
On Saturday, the justice minister’s convoy was attacked by a suicide car bomb. The minister escaped but five bodyguards were killed.
The freed Egyptian hostage safely reached the Egyptian Embassy in Baghdad, diplomats at the embassy said. Driver Mohammed Al-Gharabawi was released after the Saudi company he worked for met the demands of his kidnappers by promising to stop doing business in Iraq.
The Philippines said it had completed the withdrawal of its humanitarian military contingent in Iraq a month ahead of schedule. An official at the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait said 34 soldiers left their base in Iraq yesterday. Eleven were withdrawn last week. A few Filipino soldiers are expected to remain in Baghdad to protect the Philippine Embassy.
Despite the release of the Egyptian hostage and Manila’s hopes that dela Cruz will also soon be freed, diplomats say there is little hope that a Bulgarian hostage is still alive.
A group led by Jordanian-born Al-Qaeda ally Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi seized two Bulgarians earlier this month and sent video footage to Al-Jazeera showing one of them being beheaded.
— Additional input from agencies
