19 killed in Iraq car bombing
2005-01-02 17:06
Baghdad - Nineteen people were killed in a suicide attack against the Iraqi national guard on Sunday as more US troops were sent to the main northern city of Mosul to bolster security with landmark polls just weeks away.
The suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a busload of national guardsmen outside a US military base in Balad, north of the capital, killing at least 18 guards and a woman bystander, the US military said.
Six guardsmen were also wounded in the attack, the latest blow to Iraq's fledgling security forces in a relentless campaign of violence by Sunni Arab insurgents in the run-up to the January 30 elections.
Oil Minister Thamer Ghadban said rebel sabotage of Iraq's oil infrastructure amounted to an "all-out war" which had cost the country $8bn in lost revenue since the March 2003 invasion.
"We want to tell the Iraqi people that there is an all-out war against the country's oil infrastructure," Ghadban told reporters as he toured the capital's Dura refinery, which came under mortar fire last week.
The Iraqi security forces are expected to take the lead role in securing the elections for a 275-member assembly charged with drafting a permanent constitution to replace the interim charter adopted under the US-led occupation.
US troops will back them up only in cases of emergency, according to US commanders.
Nonethless, Washington has deployed reinforcements to flashpoint areas, including between 6 000 and 8 000 additional troops dispatched to the main northern city of Mosul on Saturday.
The city has seen an escalation of rebel attacks in recent weeks with a suicide bombing inside a US base last month killing 22 people, the deadliest single strike against the US military since the invasion.
Islamic militant groups in Iraq, including the Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sunna faction, warned last week that they would target anybody who took part in the "un-Islamic" elections.
US troops arrested a suspected member of Ansar al-Sunna and eight other men in a pre-dawn raid in the rebel stronghold of Hawija, west of the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, the US military said.
The nine were arrested in separate swoops at a bus station and a municipal building, and four were wearing Iraqi security force uniforms, Master Sergeant Robert Powell said.
US troops also arrested 14 suspects on Saturday in raids on villages and towns north and west of Mosul, the military said adding that three insurgents were killed when they tried to attack a police station southeast of the city.