Suicide bomb attack at Iraqi army recruitment centre kills six

A SUICIDE car bomb outside an Iraqi army recruitment centre and other attacks killed a dozen people and wounded more than 50 yesterday.

Iraq’s parliament was also adjourned in protest after a legislator belonging to a militant Shi’ite faction claimed he had been roughed up at a US checkpoint. The suicide bombing occurred in the Azamiyah section of the capital about 18 metres from the front gate of the recruitment centre, killing at least six Iraqis, including two soldiers, and wounding 44, said police Colonel Hussein Mutlaq.

The country’s most feared terror group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on a militant website.

In other violence targeting the military, insurgents opened fire on Iraqi soldiers in Khaldiyah town, 75 miles west of Baghdad, killing four soldiers and wounding seven, police and hospital officials said. Late last night, gunmen ambushed a senior Defence Ministry adviser, Major General Adnan al-Qaraghulli, killing him and his son as he drove home in Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.

One of the main goals of US-led forces in the two-year-old war is to train Iraqi security forces to replace US soldiers, and insurgents often target centres where these forces are recruited and instructed.

This morning, Iraq’s National Assembly briefly delayed its session to protest the alleged mistreatment of a legislator by a soldier at a US checkpoint outside the heavily-fortified Green Zone, where parliament meets. In an emotional speech to the legislature, a sobbing Fattah al-Sheik, whose small party has been linked to radical Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said the US soldier had kicked his car, mocked the legislature, handcuffed him and held him by the neck.

“What happened to me represents an insult to the whole National Assembly that was elected by the Iraqi people. This shows that the democracy we are enjoying is fake,” he said.

Before the legislative session resumed, lawmaker Salam al-Maliki read a statement from the assembly to reporters demanding an apology from the US embassy and the prosecution of the US soldier who allegedly had mistreated Mr al-Sheik.