Suicide bomber kills 9 Sunni fighters in Iraq
A suicide bomber mingled into a crowd of US-allied Sunni paramilitaries in Iraq on Saturday and detonated his explosives belt, killing nine and wounding 30 others waiting in line for their salaries, Iraqi police said.
The 11 am explosion took place outside the military headquarters in the town of Jbala, about 50km south of Baghdad, said police spokesman Maj. Muthana Khalid. The bomber walked into the group of about 250 Awakening Council members and blew himself up.
The recent spate of attacks, which this week killed at least 53 people in Baghdad alone, will likely raise concerns about the readiness of Iraqi forces to take over security of their country as the Obama administration prepares to remove all combat troops from Iraq by the end of August 2010.
The decision of tens of thousands of Sunni fighters to turn against the insurgency starting in 2006 has been key to reducing violence in Iraq, but the so-called Awakening Councils are constantly being targeted by militants.
The Iraqi government, however, has been suspicious of the fighters, maintaining that some retain ties to the insurgency.
Salaries for the paramilitaries, which were once paid by the US military, have been delayed by the Iraqi government for two months and there have been concerns among the paramilitaries that the Shia-led authorities could disband them.
The wounded in Saturday's bombing were treated at the hospital in the nearby town of Iskandariyah, said Dr. Nahidh Mohammed al-Maamouri, who also confirmed the casualty toll. The police said the bomber's identity was not immediately known.
There are some 90,000 Awakening fighters and their tensions with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government came to a head last month in central Baghdad when the arrest of one of their leaders triggered a shootout with US-backed Iraqi forces.
Al-Maliki later said the government crackdown which escalated into two-day gunbattle was not politically motivated but followed a six-month investigation that tied the commander to crimes and subversion.
Saturday's blast came on the heels of a horrific explosion Friday, believed to have been carried out by Sunni extremists, when a suicide truck driver detonated a ton of explosives near a police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul.
Five US soldiers were killed in the blast, the deadliest attack against American troops in more than a year.
Besides the five Americans, two Iraqi policemen also died and at least 62 people, including one American soldier and 27 civilians, were wounded, US and Iraqi officials said.
The US military said Iraqi police were the bomber's target and that the Americans were just bystanders. The attack, is likely to increase pressure on Iraq's prime minister to ask American combat troops to stay in Mosul after the June 30 deadline for them to pull out of Iraqi cities.
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