BAGHDAD, 8 February 2005 — Insurgents targeted the Iraqi police, killing at least 30 people in attacks yesterday as US forces freed four Egyptians when they stormed the house where they were being held..
Insurgents struck at Iraqi police with a suicide bomb, a car bomb and mortars in the cities of Mosul and Baquba. The deadliest attack came in Baquba, where a car bomb exploded outside the gates of a provincial police headquarters, killing 15 people and wounding 17, police Col. Mudhahar Al-Jubouri said. Many victims were there to seek jobs as policemen, Jubouri said.
In the northern city of Mosul, a man blew himself up inside the compound of Jumhouri Teaching Hospital, killing 12 policemen guarding the site and injuring four others, hospital officials said.
The bomb went off outside the hospital building, hospital Director Tahseen Ali Mahmoud Al-Obeidi said. Witnesses said the bomber called the police officers over to him and then blew up among the crowd.
In a posting on a website, the Al-Qaeda in Iraq group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, said “a lion from the Martyrs Brigade” wearing an explosives belt managed to get inside a police post at the Mosul hospital. There was no claim for the Baquba attack. Insurgents also shelled a police station in Mosul with more than a dozen mortar rounds, killing three civilians.
Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Orascom Telecom, told Egyptian state television that the four rescued Egyptians were safe and the company had contacted their families to inform them that they were free. He was speaking from Algeria to an Egyptian TV program.
Hours earlier, a group which claims it is holding an Italian journalist said it would release her soon because she was not a spy. “Since it has become absolutely clear that the Italian prisoner is not involved in espionage for the infidels in Iraq, and in response to the call from the Muslim Clerics Association, we in the Jihad Organization will release the Italian prisoner in the coming days,” the statement said, referring to Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena.
Meanwhile, partial results released for the Jan. 30 elections showed that a coalition of Iraq’s two main Kurdish parties has moved into second place behind a Shiite alliance. The results, from some polling centers in 13 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, showed that the Shiite alliance had around 2.3 million votes, with the Kurds winning around 1.1 million and a bloc led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi around 620,000.
Giving the latest figures, the Electoral Commission said gunmen looted polling stations in restive Nineveh province during the election, tampering with ballot boxes and preventing thousands from taking part.
Nineveh’s capital is Mosul.
Electoral Commissioner Safwat Rashid told a news conference that only 93 of a planned 330 polling centers managed to open for the historic vote in the province and a subsequent probe had found numerous cases of intimidation.
“There were a number of polling stations where voting materials were looted by gunmen... The Commission regrets that a number of people were not able to cast their votes,” he said. As a result, the Commission has set aside 40 out of a total of 455 ballot boxes and these are now being examined in Baghdad for signs of fraud or tampering.
Iraqi election monitors estimate that well over 20,000 residents around Mosul were denied a chance to vote.
— Additional input from agencies
