Iraq suicide bombings kill 14

2004-10-23 22:06

Ramadi, Iraq - Twin suicide car bombs killed 14 Iraqi police and guards on Saturday, as US troops captured a top aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Islamic militant behind a wave of attacks and kidnappings.

In the latest hostage crisis, British-Iraqi aid director Margaret Hassan made a desperate plea to the British government to save her life by pulling its troops out of Iraq after she was abducted on Tuesday in Baghdad.

Foreign civilians and soldiers as well as Iraq's fledgling security forces are prime targets in the insurgency, which is bent on destroying Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's US-backed government and ridding the country of US-led troops.

Highlighting the resolve of the insurgents, a suicide car bomb ripped through a police academy in Baghdadi, a town about 200km west of the capital early Saturday as policemen gathered for a training session.

"A suicide bomber drove into the academy where police were training and blew himself up," said Mujtaba Ahmed al-Hiti, police chief in the neighbouring town of Hit. "The attack left 10 people dead and 40 wounded."

In a further blow to US and Iraqi attempts to restore order, a second suicide bomber struck about half an hour later in a farming town north of Baghdad.

"A car bomb, driven by a suicide driver, exploded at an Iraqi national guard check point in Ishaki - 20 km south of Samarra - killing four and wounding six, all of them guardsmen," said Hamid Ahmad from the police in neighbouring Balad.

Ishaki is close to the restive city of Samarra, which US and Iraqi troops stormed at the start of the month in the first major push to retake a Sunni rebel bastion ahead of national elections planned for January.

In the latest operation into insurgent hotspots, US and Iraqi troops have set their sights on Fallujah, believed to be a base for Zarqawi and his followers and the centre of insurgent activity in Iraq.

The US military said it captured a newly-appointed senior Zarqawi follower and five other insurgents during a dawn raid in the south of the Sunni Muslim bastion, which has become the target of near nightly US air strikes in the hunt for the Jordanian-born militant and his disciples.

"Due to a surge in the number of Zarqawi associates who have been captured or killed by multinational strikes and other operations, the member had moved up to take a critical position as a Zarqawi senior leader," the military said.

- AFP