BAQUBA, Iraq, 21 December 2007 — A suicide bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives in Iraq’s Diyala province yesterday, killing 13 neighborhood patrol volunteers and a US soldier.
US forces said the explosion struck a foot patrol near a building where a city council meeting was to be held in Kanaan, near Baquba, capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad. One US soldier was killed and 10 were wounded.
Police said the building was also being used to recruit volunteers for neighborhood patrols to fight Al-Qaeda militants and all 13 Iraqi men killed were recruits. Ten recruits were wounded.
A Reuters photographer saw the bodies of 13 males in civilian clothes taken in vans to a morgue. One woman wailed next to the body of her husband: “Who will raise your son?” US forces are paying mostly Sunni Arab men to join neighborhood patrols to fight Al-Qaeda militants, a tactic Washington says has helped achieve a 60 percent drop in attacks in Iraq since June.
But the patrols have been increasingly targeted by militants, especially in provinces like Diyala, where US commanders say Al-Qaeda has regrouped after being pushed out of other parts of Iraq.
Separately, at least 17 suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen were killed in clashes overnight with Iraqi and US troops west of the restive city of Baquba, a police officer told AFP yesterday.
Capt. Ahmed Mahmud from Baquba said the battle, which also involved local anti-Qaeda front members supporting the security forces, took place in the town of Al-Hashmiyat in the restive province of Diyala. “The operation was conducted from Wednesday evening up to yesterday morning and resulted in the killing of 17 Al-Qaeda gunmen. Four Iraqi soldiers and two members of the local Awakening group were also wounded,” Mahmud said.
US commanders said they had found a torture chamber and mass graves in Diyala province with chains on the walls and a battery connected to an iron bed and said it was proof of Al-Qaeda activity.
The grisly discoveries of the mass graves and torture center near Muqdadiyah, about 90 kilometers north of Baghdad, came during a Dec. 8-11 operation that also saw multiple battles between American troops and militants. The military said it killed 24 insurgents and detained 37 others during the operation. The torture center, which the military said it thinks was run by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was found based on tips from local Iraqis. Graves containing 26 bodies were found nearby.
“We discovered several (weapons) caches, a torture facility that had chains, a bed — an iron bed that was still connected to a battery — knives and swords that were still covered in blood as we went in to go after the terrorists in that area,” said Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq.
Soldiers found a total of nine caches containing a surface-to-air missile launcher, sniper rifles, 130 pounds (59 kilograms) of homemade explosives and numerous mortar tubes and rounds, among other weapons.
One of the other main factors US commanders credit for the decline in violence is a cease-fire by followers of Moqtada Sadr. In a development welcomed by US forces, Sadr’s spokesman said the cleric was considering extending the six-month truce after it expires in February.
Sadr led uprisings against US troops in 2004 and his militia was later described by US commanders as their greatest threat. He surprised Iraqis and US forces when he ordered a six-month truce in August.
“Yes, there is a chance that the freeze on the Mehdi Army will be extended,” spokesman Salah Al-Ubaidy told Reuters late on Wednesday in Najaf, the city where the cleric’s followers are based.
US spokesman Rear Adm. Greg Smith said: “Absolutely, we welcome the potential for the extension of the freeze.
“We believe that Moqtada al Sadr’s pledge to work in a political process and the peaceful transition is much more constructive than through violence.” Sadr’s movement says he has recently begun taking advanced Islamic studies in a bid to climb the ranks of the Shiite religious hierarchy and increase his influence.
