BAGHDAD, 27 November 2005 — Two car bombs killed 10 civilians yesterday in a blast at a petrol station in central Iraq and another one targeting a two-car convoy carrying foreigners through central Baghdad, police said.
The US military also said yesterday they have received information confirming the death of a top aide to the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.
Meanwhile, some Iraqi rebel groups say they are ready to engage in the political process, a top aide to President Jalal Talabani said yesterday, after the government warned of a renewed offensive against insurgents.
“We have received calls from people who said they belonged to armed groups,” Talabani’s national security adviser Lt. Gen. Wafeeq Al-Sammarai said, adding that the callers “said they were ready to join the political process.” They included Islamists and Baathists from the now banned party of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, said Sammarai, who was the head of Iraqi military intelligence in the 1991 Gulf War.
A suicide bomber killed six when he drove his pickup into a crowded station in Samarra, 95 kilometers north of Baghdad, said police Lt. Col. Mahmoud Mohammed.
Twelve people were injured and nine cars destroyed. The burned carcasses of two sheep were in the back of one destroyed truck, and burned clothing was left around the station parking lot, including a man’s traditional Sunni Arab robe apparently torn off by one of the injured civilians at the station.
In central Baghdad, a parked car bomb detonated when two armored cars drove by, killing four people, Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said. No one in the convoy was injured, but one of the armored cars was damaged and removed by US forces, Mahmoud said. The foreigners were not immediately identified, but none of them were injured, he added.
In a statement, the US command said that Bilal Mahmud Awad Shebah, also known as Abu Ubaydah, was killed in a raid on Oct. 14 in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 115 kilometers west of Baghdad. The confirmation came from “a close family member as well as coalition sources.”
“Detained members of Al-Qaeda claim Abu Ubaydah served as an ‘executive secretary’ for Zarqawi; met with Zarqawi frequently; served as a messenger and gatekeeper for Zarqawi; screened all messages and requests for meetings with Zarqawi (and) was one of Zarqawi’s most trusted associates,” the statement said.
In the first signs of trouble to come, four people have been shot in the last two days while trying to hang campaign posters for the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, police said. Two of the incidents took place in Mosul, 360 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, while two more were reported in the capital.
In northwestern Baghdad on Friday, more than 200 members of the Batta tribe gathered at a mosque carrying banners and chanting slogans to demand the resignation of the defense minister in the slaying Wednesday of Khadim Sarhid Al-Hemaiyem.
One of the sheikh’s brothers said gunmen wearing Iraqi Army uniforms and vehicles broke into the family home, killing Al-Hemaiyem, three of his sons and his son-in-law.
