BAGHDAD: Iraq arrested 11 senior security officers on Thursday as public anger mounted after the government admitted that negligence at checkpoints led to 95 people being killed in two massive truck bombings.
The police, army and intelligence chiefs detained are being questioned over security failings that culminated in the attacks, just minutes apart outside the ministries of finance and foreign affairs, which also left 600 wounded.
Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi Army’s Baghdad operations, said regulations prohibit large trucks such as those that exploded from coming close to central Baghdad, where the two ministries are located.
“An investigation has been launched into how these trucks got into the area,” he said.
The admission came after Wednesday’s attacks, the country’s worst day of violence in 18 months, prompted outrage among Iraqis at how the bombers had been able to commit such atrocities.
“How can they allow a truck to pass through this important street, near this important ministry?” said a distraught foreign ministry worker, carrying his clothes in a bag as he started to search for a new home, because the doors and windows of his apartment had been destroyed.
“This can’t be done even in Afghanistan, or Africa,” the man, aged in his 40s, said.
“The high officials and security authorities are responsible for Wednesday’s attacks. Such bombings will continue as long as they are still in their posts,” he added.
Atta on Thursday announced new security measures, including an increased troop presence on the ground and tougher searches at checkpoints, after a pledge by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to overhaul security measures.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said that Wednesday had seen “some serious, serious security breaches,” and said that while he could not say who was behind the attacks, their timings were “archetypal of Al-Qaeda.” An interior ministry official said that the death toll from the truck bombings had not risen overnight.
Despite Thursday’s heightened state of alert, two people were killed and 10 wounded by a bicycle bomb in a market in the largely commercial Al-Rasheed street in central Baghdad, security and medical officials said.
