Iraqi suicide bombers use poison gas

Three suicide bombers driving chlorine-laden trucks struck in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, killing two policemen and forcing about 350 Iraqi civilians and six US troops to seek treatment for exposure to the gas, the military said today.

The attacks came after back-to-back bombings last month released chlorine gas, prompting the US military to warn that insurgents are adopting new tactics in a campaign to spread panic.

They also came less than a week after Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki travelled to the provincial capital to reach out to Sunni clan chiefs at a time when US officials are increasingly optimistic about their chances of undermining tribal support for the insurgency.

Just after 4 p.m on Friday, a driver detonated explosives in a pickup truck north-east of Ramadi, wounding one US service member and one Iraqi civilian, the military said in a statement.

That was followed by a similar explosion about two hours later involving a dump truck south of Fallujah in Amiriyah that killed two policemen and left as many as 100 local citizens showing signs of chlorine exposure, with symptoms ranging from minor skin and lung irritations to vomiting, the military said.

Less than 10 miles away, another suicide bomber detonated a dump truck containing a 200-gallon chlorine tank rigged with explosives at 7:13 p.m, also south of Fallujah in the Albu Issa tribal region, the military said. US forces responded to the attack and found about 250 local civilians, including seven children, suffering from symptoms related to chlorine exposure, according to the statement.

Insurgents have staged four other chlorine attacks since January 28, when a suicide bomber driving a dump truck filled with explosives and a chlorine tank struck a quick reaction force and Iraqi police in Ramadi, killing 16 people.

The most recent attack occurred February 21 in Baghdad, killing five people and sending more than 55 to hospitals, a day after a bomb planted on a chlorine tanker left more than 150 villagers stricken near Taji, 12 miles north of the capital.

A suicide car bombing involving chlorine also killed two Iraqi security forces wounded 16 other people, including 13 civilians on February 19, the military said in a previously unannounced attack.

The military also said last month that they found a car bomb factory near Fallujah with about 65 propane tanks and ordinary chemicals it believed the insurgents were going to try to mix with explosives. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief US military spokesman, called it a “crude attempt to raise the terror level”.

Chlorine gas in low exposure irritates the respiratory system, eyes and skin, and death is possible with heavy exposure.

Iraqi police said a suicide bomber driving a tanker truck detonated his explosives on Friday in a line of cars waiting on the edge of the village of Amiriyah to enter Fallujah, killing at least six people, including two policemen, and wounding 75, including women and children, police said.

A doctor, Mohammed Fuad, said 15 seriously wounded people were brought to the Fallujah hospital and most were having difficulty breathing and their faces had a blue tinge in addition to their other wounds. He said they had been exposed to a poisonous gas. The US military later said the gas was chlorine.

A car bomb also exploded on Friday about six miles south of Fallujah, killing one person and wounding four others, police said, adding that the bomb was targeting the reception centre of a tribal sheikh who has denounced al Qaida.

The strikes carried the hallmarks of an increasingly bloody struggle for control of Anbar province – a centre for anti-US guerrillas since the uprising in Fallujah in 2004 that galvanised the insurgency.

US military envoys and pro-government leaders have worked hard to sway clan chiefs and other influential Anbar figures to turn against the militants, who include foreign jihadists fighting under the banner of al Qaida in Iraq. The extremists have fought back with targeted killings and bombings against fellow Sunnis.

Bombings and shootings targeted police patrols elsewhere in Iraq, killing five policemen, including two who died after a suicide car bomber struck the checkpoint they were manning near a Sunni mosque in western Baghdad. That attack left five other people wounded.

In all, at least 22 people were killed or found dead in Iraq, including five civilians shot to death in separate attacks in the volatile Diyala province north-east of Baghdad.

A US soldier also was shot to death in fighting in the provincial capital of Baqouba, the military said, raising to at least 3,209 American service members who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.