BAGHDAD, 20 January 2005 — Insurgents unleashed a wave of car bombings across the Iraqi capital yesterday, killing over 20 people despite stepped-up US and Iraqi measures to protect this month’s national election. Gunmen fired on the Baghdad office of a major Kurdish party and two senior officials escaped assassination attempts in separate attacks in the north.
Meanwhile, China scrambled to save the lives of eight nationals captured by Iraqi militants who have threatened them with death if Beijing does not clarify its position on Iraq.
Outside the capital, insurgents killed a British security contractor and kidnapped a Japanese engineer in separate attacks around Baiji, 250 kilometers north of Baghdad, according to US and Iraqi officials.
The US military put the death toll from the day’s Baghdad bombings at 26, saying the number was based on initial field reports from US and Iraqi troops at the scene.
Sunni insurgents have threatened to disrupt the election, and the five car bombings — four of them within a span of 90 minutes — underscored the grave threat facing Iraqis at this watershed in their history. US and Iraqi forces have stepped up raids and arrests in Baghdad, Mosul and other trouble spots as the election approaches.
Nevertheless, the attacks had little effect on preparations for the Jan. 30 balloting, in which Iraqis will choose a 275-member National Assembly and regional legislatures. At Baghdad airport, Iraqi authorities yesterday received the largest shipment of ballot boxes and other election equipment to date.
Election official Farid Ayar said a total of 90,000 ballot boxes had already been flown to Iraq along with millions of forge-proof ballots, printed mostly in Canada and Australia.
Throughout the morning yesterday, the routine clatter of big city traffic was punctuated by the crisp sound of distant explosions. US military helicopters rattled low overhead, roaming the bright blue sky for any sign of trouble. Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq claimed responsibility for the first of the day’s blasts, which occurred about 7 a.m. at the Australian Embassy in the capital. A truck packed with explosives blew up outside the concrete barriers in front of the embassy, killing two people and wounding several, including two Australian soldiers.
“A lion of monotheism and faith ... carried out a martyrdom operation nearby the Australian Embassy,” the group Al-Qaeda in Iraq said in a web statement.
