Iraq Suicide Attack Toll May Be 200
37 minutes ago
By Shamal Aqrawi
ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers killed or wounded up to 200 people in simultaneous attacks against two Kurdish parties aligned with U.S.-led forces occupying northern Iraq (news - web sites) Sunday, officials said.
The deputy governor of Arbil province and the city's chief of police were among those killed in the attacks on buildings housing the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), witnesses and hospital officials said.
In southwestern Iraq about 20 people trying to loot an ammunition dump were killed when the arms exploded, a spokesman for the U.S.-led multinational occupation force said.
The suicide attackers in Arbil struck nearly simultaneously at mid-morning, as party officials were welcoming guests for the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast.
"According to what I have been told the number of wounded and martyrs at the two headquarters may approach 200," a PUK official told Reuters. Witnesses said earlier the two suicide bombers killed at least 10 other people.
The KDP and PUK ran an enclave of northern Iraq as an autonomous zone under U.S. protection following the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites) and fighters from the two groups fought alongside U.S. soldiers in the war that ousted Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) last year.
U.S. forces had been on alert for violence ahead of the holiday, given that guerrillas have often struck on significant dates against Iraq's U.S.-led occupiers and those seen as cooperating with them.
Attackers killed at least 18 people across Iraq Saturday.
BUNKER BLAST
About 20 people were killed in explosions early Sunday at a weapons bunker 110 miles southwest of the town of Kerbala.
"They wanted to loot and steal ammunition from the bunker," said Polish Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Strzelecki, a spokesman for the multinational force in southern Iraq.
He said no coalition soldiers were hurt and the identity of the looters was not known.
Large amounts of weapons and unused ammunition have been found in Iraq by the U.S. military and their coalition partners. Officials say it is impossible to guard all the weapons depots.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz arrived in Baghdad Sunday to gauge security five months ahead of the planned handover of sovereignty to Iraqis.
He told reporters he would "assess progress in this country since I was last here."
"It's been a very eventful three months that has included the capture of Saddam Hussein, which is a major event for the Iraqi people," he added.
Wolfowitz met military commanders on his third postwar visit to the country to be briefed on plans for a massive rotation of forces in and out of Iraq.
Ahead of his visit, Wolfowitz met U.S. troops in Germany, and dismissed criticism of the decision to invade Iraq on the basis of intelligence that many now say was faulty.
"You have to make decisions based on the intelligence you have, not on the intelligence you're going to discover later," Wolfowitz said.
FAULTY INTELLIGENCE?
President Bush (news - web sites) is considering an independent panel to investigate prewar intelligence he used to justify the war, and aides are discussing it with congressional officials, sources familiar with the talks said Saturday.
Bush had rejected an independent investigation amid White House fears of a political witch hunt by Democrats hoping to unseat him in this year's presidential election, but began to reconsider the position in recent days.
U.S.-led troops face daily attacks in Iraq. Saturday, an American soldier died from wounds sustained in a roadside bomb blast west of Baghdad last week, the Army said.
The soldier's death brought to 365 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action since the start of the war to oust Saddam last march. Including non-combat deaths, 523 soldiers have died. |
