Bomber Kills 20 Iraqi Troops

A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed SUV alongside a bus full of Iraqi national guards Sunday morning, killing at least 20 soldiers.

The blast near Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, was one of the first of several attacks on Iraqi security forces throughout the day that left at least 27 people dead.

Authorities described the violence as part of a campaign to undercut Iraq’s interim government and scare Iraqis away from participating in the Jan. 30 national election, in part by assailing forces charged with safeguarding the polls.

The last few weeks have brought a relentless run of deadly strikes on police, national guardsmen, election officials and political candidates.

Less than an hour after the bus was attacked near Balad, four Iraqi policemen were shot to death and a fifth wounded close to neighboring Samarra.

“These are attempts to undermine the resolve of the Iraqi people and particularly the national guard, but they’ve shown time after time that they are in this for the long haul,” said Master Sgt. Robert Powell, a U.S. military spokesman in the city of Tikrit.

The bloodshed began early Sunday as the national guardsmen set out for their posts by bus.

About 8 a.m., as the bus reached a traffic circle about a mile from a U.S. military base, a Toyota Land Cruiser veered into its path and exploded.

The bomber may have had a passenger, U.S. officials said. In addition to the at least 20 guardsmen, the bus driver, a civilian, was slain.

The bus attack occurred a day after an Iraqi group linked to Al Qaeda released a video showing five Iraqi security officers being executed. In a statement, the group, led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, promised more attacks against those it saw as collaborators with foreign occupiers.

The sites of Sunday’s main attacks lie in the so-called Sunni Triangle region, where loyalties to Saddam Hussein run the deepest and strikes on U.S. and Iraqi forces are common.

Similar violence continued to erupt elsewhere, however. Later on Sunday, an Iraqi national guard vehicle was damaged in an attack west of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Another suicide car bomber targeted a U.S. patrol in southwestern Baghdad, wounding two soldiers.

Officials said they expected the onslaught to intensify as the election approached.

“It’s a major problem,” said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the Iraqi police. “We don’t have enough forces, we don’t have enough equipment and we have a very determined opponent.”