Bomb kills 22 as Iraq hands out cabinet jobs
From Andrew Marshall in Baghdad
Suicide bombers killed 20 Iraqis and two American civilians yesterday on a busy Baghdad road.
The US embassy claimed that two suicide car bombs exploded beside the convoy, killing two American contractors. Witnesses said three children were among the dead civilians.
Police at the scene said they believed the US dead were private security contractors working for the American military.
The attack came as Iraq’s leadership broke the deadlock on the allocation of cabinet posts, agreeing yesterday to appoint Saadoun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab, as defence minister, and placing Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, a Shi’ite, in charge of the oil ministry.
Many Iraqis say the delay in forming a government after the January 30 elections has allowed the insurgents to regroup.
Guerrillas have mounted a wave of deadly attacks in the past week, killing more than 300 people and defying government predictions that the insurgency was crumbling with a blitz of powerful bomb attacks.
A policeman at the scene of yesterday’s bombing claimed the attack had happened as a convoy of four civilian vehicles passed the busy intersection. “When the convoy drove past, a car bomb exploded right beside it,” said Mohammed Amir. “There was severe damage to the convoy.”
At least two of the security convoy’s vehicles were red uced to smouldering wreckage. One foreigner was seen staggering away from the scene, bleeding and clutching a head wound. The blast brought chaos to central Baghdad, with at least 30 people wounded by flying glass and wreckage.
The US military said the convoy was operated by an American company. The bomb targeted one of the distinctive convoys used by foreign civilians in Iraq, who usually travel in conspicuous sports utility vehicles, protected by armed security guards.
Immediately after the attack, Iraq’s government and the US military claimed they were making progress against the insurgents, announcing that Ghassan al-Rawi, an aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, had been captured in a raid west of Baghdad in April.
Al-Rawi was the leader of the insurgents in the town of Rawa in western Iraq, the government said.
In a move to promote security in the country, prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari will put his new appointments before the Iraqi parliament for app roval today.
A deal had to be made over the five cabinet posts which had remained empty until yesterday, a full three months after national elections in Iraq. On Tuesday a partial cabinet was sworn in, but it has taken until now to find acceptable candidates to fill the remaining vacancies.
Talks are still going on to finalise the full line-up of deputy prime ministers.
Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority, dominant during the rule of Saddam Hussein, was sidelined after the January 30 elections as most Sunni Arabs stayed away from the polls due to calls for a boycott and fears of insurgent attacks. There are only 17 Sunni Arab lawmakers in the 275-member parliament, but Shi’ite and Kurdish leaders agreed to give important cabinet posts, including the defence ministry to Sunni Arabs in an attempt to defuse ethnic and sectarian tensions and undermine the insurgency, mainly fought by Sunni Arab guerrillas.
Insurgents are also putting pressure on foreign troops to leave by seizing foreign hostages. On Friday, al-Jazeera broadcast a new video showing Australian captive Douglas Wood, 63, apparently pleading for his life as two guerrillas pointed rifles at him.
Wood appeared distraught and his head had been shaved. Al-Jazeera said his captors demanded that Australia begin withdrawing its troops from Iraq within 72 hours, prompting his family in Australia to make a fresh televised plea for his freedom yesterday afternoon.
Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer said Canberra would never bow to the demands of hostage-takers.
http://www.sundayherald.com/49586
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