Car bombs in Iraq kill at least 25, wound 64

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-28 13:55

BAGHDAD – A pair of car bombs killed more than two dozen people on Saturday, shattering a recent period of calm and serving as a grim reminder that recent gains remains fragile as Iraq prepares to take over security responsibilities for much of the country.

Iraqis stand at the site of a car bombing in the northern Baghdad Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, December 27, 2008. At least 18 people were killed and 25 were wounded in the blast, the US military said. [Agencies]

The attacks included one in the Iraqi capital - the first major attack in more than a week - that killed at least 22 people and injured 54.

In other violence, a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq fugitive was killed in a gunbattle with police in the western city of Ramadi, police said. He was one of four suspected insurgents who escaped during a jailbreak and ensuing riot at a Ramadi police station on Friday that left six policemen and seven insurgents dead.

Although violence has dropped by more than 80 percent around Iraq and particularly Baghdad, the US military has repeatedly said the improved security conditions remain fragile.

Iraq assumes control over much of the country on Jan. 1 under a security pact that replaces an expiring UN mandate. The new agreement gives Iraqi authorities a role in approving and overseeing US military operations, and requires that US troops withdraw from Baghdad and other cities by the end of June. They must leave the country entirely by Jan. 1, 2012.

The US military has said attacks are down from 180 a day last year to about 10 a day this year.

The latest attack came in Baghdad's al-Zahra square, in the northern Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah. TV footage of the scene showed scorched cars and minibuses. A charred engine block and melted, twisted metal was all that remained of the car bomb.

The office of Iraqi army spokesman Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the blast killed at least 22 people, while a US military spokesman, Capt. Charles Calio, said 20 were killed and 25 wounded. Conflicting casualty tolls are common in the chaotic aftermath of bombings in Iraq.

South of Baghdad, an Iraqi soldier and two other people were killed when a car bomb exploded as they were trying to defuse it in Musayyib, about 60 miles (40 kilometers) south of Baghdad, an Iraqi police officer said.

Two of the victims were said to be members of the local Awakening Council, also known as Sons of Iraq, the Sunni insurgents and tribesmen who turned against al-Qaida in Iraq and joined the US military in the fight against the terror group, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

He said 10 other people were wounded in the blast. Initial reports by the US military showed three were killed and two injured. All were believed to be Iraqi soldiers, Calio said.

Prior to Saturday's explosion in Baghdad, the last major attack in Iraq was a Dec. 17 double-bombing in Baghdad that killed 18 and wounded 52 others.

In western Iraq, Iraqi police said they killed escaped prisoner, Emad Farhan, in a gunbattle inside the home of a family he had taken hostage. Three police were wounded but the family was not harmed, said the officer who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Another man who escaped was arrested Friday, and police were still searching for two others.

Police in the northern city of Kirkuk also arrested six suspected insurgents, including the former driver of Hassan al-Majid - Saddam Hussein's cousin who is also known as "Chemical Ali," for ordering poison gas attacks against Iraq's Kurdish minority in the 1980s. Police Col. Bastoun Qafari said they were arrested in a pre-dawn raid.

Earlier this month al-Majid received his second death sentence from an Iraqi court for his role in crushing a Shiite uprising in the wake of Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.