Iraq insurgents kill 28
2005-06-20 19:32
Baghdad - Iraq's insurgency appeared unfazed by two United States-led military offensives, mounting separate attacks that killed at least 28 people and wounded scores of others throughout the country on Monday.
The largest one occurred in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil.
Police and hospital officials said that a suicide car bomber dressed as a policeman slammed into a large group of traffic police officers gathered for morning roll call, killing 15 and wounding more than 100 others.
The US-led Operations Spear and Dagger, which began during the weekend and were aimed at destroying militant networks near the Syrian border and north of Baghdad, appeared to be winding down.
US soldier killed by roadside bomb
US and Iraqi forces had killed about 60 insurgents and 100 captured so far, while one Marine had been killed and three others wounded.
Other insurgent violence throughout the country on Monday killed 13, including a US soldier killed by a roadside bomb in northern Iraq.
General Sarhad Qadir said, separately, militants detonated a car bomb by remote control next to a passing police patrol in Kirkuk, wounding four policemen.
Qadir said the explosion targeted the police chief of Lilan area, 25km south of Kirkuk, who was with the patrol, but escaped unharmed.
The rate of insurgent attacks had risen dramatically since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his cabinet on April 28.
Historic elections boycotted
According to police and hospital reports, at least 1 180 people had been killed since then.
Sunni Arabs were believed to make up the core of Iraq's insurgency and many of them boycotted historic elections in January, leaving them politically sidelined and embittered by the rise of the Shiites and the Kurds - two communities that accounted for about 80% of the country's estimated 26 million people.
The insurgency had especially targeted Iraqi security forces, because they were seen as collaborators of the US and Shiite-led governments.
Some extremists had also started threatening fellow Sunni Arabs, because some leaders of the minority Muslim sect had expressed a readiness to join the political process.
- AP