Suicide bomber kills 10, wounds 40

A SUICIDE attacker detonated a massive car bomb yesterday at a checkpoint near the British Embassy and headquarters of the interim Iraqi government.

The suicide attack was the worst in Baghdad since the US transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government on June 28, killing at least 10 people and wounding 40, including a US soldier, authorities said.

Hours earlier, the Philippines said it had begun withdrawing its small peacekeeping contingent from Iraq, an apparent bid to placate militants who threatened to kill a Filipino hostage if the troops were not out by July 20.

Underscoring the urgency of the Philippines’ predicament, militants in Iraq said they had killed a captive Bulgarian truck driver and threatened to put another Bulgarian hostage to death in 24 hours, Al-Jazeera television reported yesterday.

The explosion shook buildings throughout central Baghdad at about 9.15am, when a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with 1,000lb of explosives. The bomb killed four Iraqi national guardsmen and seven Iraqi civilians, the US military said. Many of the civilians were in line to apply for jobs.

Black and grey smoke billowed from the blast site, leaving a crater almost two metres wide and a metre deep in the road. The charred remains of five cars stood by a protective blast wall that had been partially destroyed. Two other trucks and a car lay smouldering nearby.

Police cars and ambulances raced to the scene, and US helicopters hovered overhead.

The attack targeted a checkpoint leading to a parking lot in the area formerly known as the Green Zone, the heavily protected Baghdad neighbourhood housing government offices and the US and British embassies, said Iraqi police colonel Tawfeeq Sayer.

“This is a naked aggression against the Iraqi people. We will bring these criminals to justice,” interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said during a visit to the scene.

Mr Allawi said the attack was retaliation for the government’s arrest of suspected terrorists, though he offered no details on suspects. The government said Tuesday it had arrested more than 500 suspected criminals in a police sweep of militants in Baghdad. The blast occurred on a national holiday marking the 46th anniversary of the bloody nationalist coup that killed Iraq’s last king, Faisal II. Meanwhile, kidnappers holding the Filipino, Angelo dela Cruz, said they would treat him like a prisoner of war if Manila made a good-faith move toward withdrawing its 51 troops early and would free him if the pull-out was completed by July 20.

The government statement yesterday did not clarify when the withdrawal would be finished, but appeared directed toward that demand.

“The Foreign Affairs Ministry is co-ordinating the pull-out of the humanitarian contingent with the Ministry of National Defence,” the statement said. “As of today, our head count is down from 51 to 43.”

There was no immediate US response to the latest announcement, but US officials had earlier expressed displeasure that Manila was even considering caving in to the kidnappers’ demand, a position echoed by Australia and Iraq’s new interim government.