BAGHDAD, 27 June 2004 — In the latest attacks aimed at derailing the transition to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, fighters yesterday detonated car bombs in the towns of Hilla, south of Baghdad, and the northern Kurdish stronghold of Arbil.
A car bomb blast in Hilla last night killed at least 17 people and wounded 40 others, according to the US military.
“It is a suspected car bomb,” deputy director of coalition operations, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said. “There are currently 17 dead and 40 wounded.”
Earlier, Lt. Col. Robert Strzelecki, spokesman for the Polish-led force that patrols the city, said the blast occurred at 8:45 p.m. near the former Saddam Mosque, named after the toppled Iraqi president.
The blast in the mainly Shiite town, 100 kilometers south of Baghdad, came four days before the scheduled handover of power from the coalition to a caretaker interim Iraqi government.
Militants loyal to alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi said they had seized three Turkish hostages and would behead them unless Turks stopped working with US-led forces in Iraq.
In Arbil, 350 kilometers north of Baghdad, a car bomb yesterday morning killed a shopkeeper and wounded dozens of people including Mahmoud Mohammed, culture minister in the Kurdish regional government.
“I was on my way to the ministry. There was a car bomb. The blast hit my car from outside. The people who were with me were injured too,” Mohammed said from his hospital bed where he was recovering from a head wound.
“It is like any terrorist attack. They want to end peace and democracy,” he said. “The only language they know is violence.”
Earlier yesterday fighters stormed the offices of two political parties in Baquba, 65 kilometers north of Baghdad.
An attack on the offices of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group that has been cooperating with the US-led administration in the country, killed three guards and wounded two, officials said.
Guerrillas also blew up a building used by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord party in Baquba.
Kimmitt said six fighters were killed in yesterday’s fighting in the town. He said one of the dead fighters was found with TNT strapped to his body.
Amid the soaring violence, the coalition blamed Zarqawi for the bloodbath.
US forces have bombed the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, on three separate days in the past week in an attempt to kill Zarqawi, the alleged Al-Qaeda chief for Iraq, and his followers.
Kimmitt said coalition commanders believed they might have come close to Zarqawi in the latest raid on Friday, which he said killed 15 people, and he appealed to ordinary Iraqis for information on the militant.
But he acknowledged that Zarqawi, while being the coalition’s “No. 1 target” in Iraq, was not the sole source of the violence.
“Even if we were to catch or kill Zarqawi tomorrow there would still be residual violence,” Kimmitt told reporters.
Washington blames Zarqawi for at least 30 attacks in Iraq, including a bombing rampage in March that killed more than 170 people during a religious festival and the grizzly beheading of an American, as well as the South Korean hostage.
“There is a 10-million-dollar reward out for any information that would lead to help putting Mr. Zarqawi out of business,” coalition spokesman Dan Senor reminded reporters at a news conference.
— Additional input from agencies
