Suicide bomber kills at least 10 in attack on Iraqi police post

Violence in Anbar area shows limits of security gains

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 01, 2008

BAGHDAD

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a police checkpoint west of Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 10 people including the local police chief, an official said.

Fearing more attacks, authorities imposed a vehicle ban and closed all entrances to the targeted town of Hit.

The attacker detonated his explosives belt after approaching the checkpoint, which was near a bridge, at about 9 p.m., said the town's administrator, Hikmat Jubeir.

Jubeir said that six policemen were among those killed, including the town's police chief Col. Khalil Ibrahim. Four civilians also were killed, and 12 other people were wounded, he said.

Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad, is in Anbar province, which was the center of the Sunni-led insurgency before local tribal leaders joined forces with the U.S. military against al-Qaida in Iraq, a key factor in a steep drop in violence nationwide.

The town itself was among a series of communities along the Euphrates River used by al-Qaida and other insurgent groups to smuggle weapons, ammunition and fighters from Syria southeast toward Baghdad.

The bombing was a grim reminder of the dangers that continue to face Iraqis despite the recent security gains.

It raised the number of Iraqis killed in May to at least 532, the lowest monthly death toll this year, according to an Associated Press tally compiled from Iraqi police and military reports.

In political developments, loyalists of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stepped up their opposition to a long-term security deal being negotiated between the Iraqi government and the United States.

Senior Sadrists, including legislators Falah Hassan Shanshal and Maha Adel al-Douri, met in the cleric's Sadr City office in Baghdad and called on the Iraqi government to stop the negotiations and to hold a public referendum on the issue.

Al-Sadr, the hard-line Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army militia battled U.S.-Iraqi troops in Baghdad's Sadr City district until a truce this month, also has called for a referendum along with weekly protests.

Widespread opposition among the Sadrists and other Shiite and Sunni groups has raised doubts that negotiators can meet a July target to finalize a pact to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after the current U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Although U.S. officials insist they are not seeking permanent bases, suspicion runs deep among Iraqis that the Americans want to keep at least some troops in the country for many years.

Tensions also rose when Nassar al-Rubaie, the leader of the Sadrist bloc in parliament, was stopped at a police checkpoint outside Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad. The six-car convoy, en route from Basra to the holy city of Najaf, was held up for nearly two hours without explanation, al-Rubaie told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.