Meanwhile, back in Iraq...
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Death toll nears 400 as violence escalates in Iraq
By Steve Negus in Baghdad
Published: May 12 2005 03:00 | Last updated: May 12 2005 03:00
More than 70 people were killed in at least five attacks across Iraq yesterday in a dramatic surge in insurgent violence that has overshadowed the rise to power of Iraq's first elected government.
The wave of attacks, which brings the total number of Iraqis dead over the past two weeks to nearly 400, has shattered the sense of optimism created by the January 30 elections.
The escalation in violence appears designed to undermine the newly announced government led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Shia Islamist al-Dawa party. Yesterday's blasts also came as US forces continued an offensive in a desert area near the Syrian border, alleged to be a main route for foreign Islamist volunteers infiltrating Iraq.
US sources claim that at least 100 insurgents have also been killed in four days of fighting, in addition to three marines and at least two civilians, a woman and a child, shot at a checkpoint on Tuesday.
The deadliest blast yesterday took place in Saddam Hussein's home-town of Tikrit, where a suicide car bomb exploded in a market outside a police station, killing at least 33 people.
In Hawija, a predominantly Sunni Arab town south-west of the disputed city of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber detonated explosives hidden under his clothes amid a crowd waiting outside a police and army recruitment centre, killing 32 people.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, three car bombs killed four people and wounded 14, police said.
US officials say the recent wave of suicide attacks is probably the work of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to control most of the non-Iraqi volunteers that the US says make up the majority of suicide bombers.
In an attempt to disrupt Mr Zarqawi's network, US forces backed by fighter-bombers and attack helicopters continued a sweep through the Euphrates river valley near the city of Qaem in the western province of Anbar, a region the US claims is used as a staging area for foreign fighters crossing the Syrian border.
"It is here that these foreign fighters receive the weapons and equipment to conduct attacks such as suicide car bombs and assassination or kidnapping of political or civilian targets, in the more populated key cities of Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul," the US military said.
Insurgents kidnapped the governor of Anbar, the predominantly Sunni province, and said he would only be released when US troops pulled out of Qaem, the governor's family reported on Tuesday. Additional reporting by Dhiya Rasan and Awadh al-Taee in Baghdad |
