BAGHDAD, 18 June 2004 — Saboteurs targeted Iraqi security forces yesterday, killing 41 people in two car bombings.
In Baghdad, a sport utility vehicle packed with artillery shells blew up in a crowd of people waiting to volunteer for the Iraqi military, killing at least 35 people and wounding 138. Another car bomb north of the capital killed six members of the Iraqi security forces.
The explosion in Baghdad — the deadliest attack since the same recruitment center was bombed in February — was part of a surge of violence against US coalition forces and their Iraqi allies ahead of the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.
The blast scattered bodies and debris across a four-lane highway outside Baghdad’s Muthanna airport, which is used as a base by both the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the US military. The explosion could be heard for miles and sent a cloud of smoke over the city.
No American or Iraqi troops were wounded, US Army Col. Mike Murray said. Most of the victims appeared to be poor Iraqis hoping to join the security forces because job opportunities are limited.
The other car bomb exploded in the afternoon in a village near Balad, 80 kilometers north of Baghdad, killing six ICDC members and injuring four others, the US 1st Infantry Division said. The ICDC is the main internal security force, created by US administrators to battle militants.
Iraq’s interior minister said he believed an Al-Qaeda-linked militant, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, was connected to the bombing. Falah Hassan Al-Naqib also blamed the attack and a spate of other car bombings on foreigners. The US military has counted 20 car bomb attacks so far in June alone.
“We are quite sure and confident they are not Iraqis,” Al-Naqib said. “And we have very good indications that they came from abroad.”
Al-Naqib said that one of Zarqawi’s aides had been arrested, though he did not identify the person.
“This was a cowardly attack. It is a demonstration again that these attacks are aimed at the stability of Iraq and the Iraqi people,” Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said at the scene.
Iraq’s new defense minister promised a military crackdown on militants. “We will cut off their hands and behead them,” Hazim Al-Shaalan said. Iraqi forces would lead the raids, with only logistical help from US troops, he added.
An opinion poll conducted for the US-led authority since a prison abuse scandal became public found that 55 percent of Iraqis would feel safer if US troops left the country now.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraq was still too dangerous for the UN to return to the country.
“On the security situation on the ground in Iraq, obviously I am extremely worried,” Annan told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.
“I am grateful to the Security Council that they inserted the phrase that we could go in ‘as circumstances permit’. As of today circumstances do not permit and we are monitoring the situation extremely carefully,” Annan added. The United Nations withdrew international staff following two bomb attacks on or near the UN offices in Baghdad in August and October.
Annan also said he hoped to soon announce who would be the next UN representative to Iraq. “I haven’t quite decided. I have a list which I am looking at. I would hope to be able to designate someone within the next week or so. It’s a tough choice,” he said.
— Additional input from agencies
