Eleven killed in Iraqi terror attacks

Two terror attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad today left at least 11 people dead including a Spanish military attaché who was assassinated.

A suicide car bomber hit a police station in the north-east of the city killing 10 people including the bomber, police and the US military said.

Shortly afterwards, the Spanish attaché was shot dead outside his home by men including one disguised as a Shiite cleric.

Three policemen and five civilians were killed by the car bomb in addition to the attacker.

Police Major Majid Abdel-Hameed said the car was a white Oldsmobile. The driver drove through the police compound gate, was fired at by officers and then detonated the bomb.

There were at least 28 people injured.

A dozen ambulances raced toward the facility in the Shiite Muslim slum known as Sadr City. The attack happened just as policemen were lining up in the courtyard of the facility for the morning role call.

There were many damaged police cars at the bomb site and much debris in the courtyard in front of the one-storey building.

Scores of US soldiers surrounded the building in Humvees.

A mosque near the scene was blaring warnings to the thousands of residents who had gathered at the station to leave the area for fear of a second booby-trapped car.

The attaché who died was air force Sergeant Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez who was attached to Spain’s National Intelligence Centre.

A Spanish defence ministry spokesman said Gomez was attached to the information section of the embassy in the Iraqi capital.

“He was assassinated about 8.45am (7.45 Irish time) upon leaving his home. It appears it was done by a number of men with a firearm,” a British foreign ministry spokesman said.

Three men approached Gomez as he left his home and the Spaniard was shot several times as he ran away, Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported.

He had been working at Spain’s embassy in Baghdad for two years.

Gomez became Spain’s second casualty in Iraq. Navy Captain Manuel Martin Oar died in the lorry-bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August.

The government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar supported the Iraq invasion and subsequently sent about 1,300 troops for peacekeeping duties.

The war was unpopular with Spaniards. Parties in opposition to the ruling Popular Party urged the government to withdraw peacekeeping troops after Martin Oar’s death.