Suicide bombing kills 10 in Iraqi police post
Senior defence ministry official assassinated
Reuters, Baghdad
A suspected suicide car bomb blew up outside a police station in southwestern Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 10 people, wounding dozens and leaving a tangled wreckage of burned out cars and destroyed buildings. A senior Iraqi defense ministry official has been assassinated near his home in southern Baghdad, in the latest of a string of attacks on Iraqi officials, a ministry spokesman. In a seemingly accelerated campaign of violence, the latest in a series of car bomb blasts in Baghdad and across Iraq has seen insurgents target Iraqi police, National Guardsmen and senior members of Iraq's new government. US Army Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Salter said between 10 and 15 people were killed and more than 40 wounded in the attack, which he said was probably carried out by a suicide car bomber. He said the blast may have been exacerbated by a fuel truck parked nearby, but didn't say whether it was directly employed. Health Ministry officials said their latest figures showed at least eight people were killed and 52 wounded in the attack. Reuters Television pictures showed flames still licking at the wreckage of several destroyed cars nearly an hour after the blast, and smoke rising into the air from smoldering buildings. Bystanders gathered up the scattered body parts of the dead, filling several boxes with bloody remains. There was a large pool of blood on the street and a deep crater from the blast. The attack occurred shortly after 8 a.m. (0400 GMT), as many people were arriving at work. Car workshops across the road from the police station took the brunt of the blast, witnesses said, and several people working there were killed. "Those who were standing in the open were killed. Those who saw it were killed," said car shop worker Laith Abdel Karim. It is the latest in a series of suicide car bomb attacks in recent days. A car bomb outside the headquarters of the US military and the Iraqi interim government in Baghdad last week killed 11 people and wounded around 30. Another blast last week outside an Iraqi National Guard garrison 200km northwest of Baghdad killed 10. A suicide bomber also tried to assassinate Iraq's justice minister on Saturday, killing five of his bodyguards. Insurgents often target the police and the National Guard, accusing them of collaborating with the US military. One National Guardsman was angered by that accusation on Monday. "They say we collaborate with the coalition. We don't collaborate, we just protect our nation. We protect the land of Iraqis," Amer Shaker Mehdi said.
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