Bomber in Iraq town kills key Sunni
A suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint in the city of Baqubah on Wednesday, killing four people, including the Sunni leader serving as the main liaison there between the U.S. military and neighborhood volunteers helping to fight Al Qaeda, Iraqi police said.
Some officials put the death toll as high as 10. As many as 23 people were injured in the blast.
Police officials said the bomber was stopped at a checkpoint by members of the local Awakening Council, a volunteer security force. He reportedly blew himself up with an explosives vest after jumping onto the hood of a car being driven by a council member. It is the latest in a series of attacks targeting volunteers who have become the cornerstone of the U.S. military strategy to fight insurgents. Military officials have credited such councils around the country with helping reduce violence by 60% in the last six months.
“The fact that Al Qaeda is targeting them is the clearest indication that they are concerned about them,” U.S. military spokesman Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said at a briefing Wednesday.
The growing number of volunteers, many of them Sunni Arabs who formerly supported the insurgency, may have also helped prompt Osama bin Laden to release a 56-minute tape over the weekend. In it, he accused Sunnis who join the fight against the group Al Qaeda in Iraq of being “traitors” and warned that they “betrayed the nation and brought disgrace and shame to their people.”
“They will suffer in life and the afterlife,” Bin Laden said.
Despite the attacks and Bin Laden’s warnings, volunteers said they are committed to fighting terrorism.
“Such terrorist attacks against the Awakening Councils will never deter us or make us hesitant to continue our path,” said Khalid Khalidi, spokesman for the council in Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. “Now, I am sitting here [near the explosion], carrying my gun and my colleagues are with me. Such incidents will encourage us to continue.”
In Samarra, 60 miles northwest of the capital, about 600 new volunteers joined the Samarra Supporting Council this week, said Mazin Younis Hassan, the group’s leader.
The volunteers have grown angry that militants are killing under what he called “flimsy and silly pretexts.”
“Because of that, people are joining these councils. We chose this path,” he said. “We pray to God that our sacrifices will be few, but there must be some sacrifices.”
Elsewhere, a bomb exploded Wednesday morning in east Baghdad, injuring six Iraqi police officers and three civilians, police said.
Northeast of Samarra, gunmen dragged two brothers from their shop and shot them in front of passersby. One of the victims, a city official in Samarra, died at the scene. The other suffered critical injuries and was taken to a nearby hospital, police said.
And during sweeps targeting Al Qaeda in Iraq in central and northern areas of the country, coalition forces killed three suspected terrorists and detained 11 others, the U.S. military reported Wednesday. Coalition troops in the Baghdad district of Adhamiya captured a suspect believed to be involved in training militants in guerrilla tactics.
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Times staff writer Raheem Salman and correspondents in Baghdad and Baqubah contributed to this report.
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