Baghdad, Iraq – A suicide attacker joined a line of job applicants at an army recruitment center and blew himself up in one of four attacks that killed 26 people Thursday as insurgents took aim at Iraq’s new government.
Faced with relentless car bombings, Iraqi security forces have turned many recruitment centers into small fortresses surrounded by concrete blast walls and razor wire, but militants are striking back with an old weapon: the suicide bomber belt.
The attacks are part of a surge in violence that has killed more than 200 people since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new government last week, with seven positions still undecided.
The Cabinet held its first meeting Thursday. Al-Jaafari aide Laith Kuba said the seven vacancies, including the key oil and defense ministries, would be filled by Saturday and parliament would be asked to vote on them Sunday.
In the deadliest attack Thursday, police said an insurgent with explosives strapped to his body mingled among hundreds of men waiting outside an army recruitment office a half-mile from Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to government offices, foreign embassies and U.S. forces.
At least 13 people were killed and 20 wounded in the blast, Lt. Salam Wahab said at the recruitment center.
At al-Yarmouk Hospital, the morgue was overflowing with mangled bodies after the blast.
“While we were standing in line, a man walked right up to the heavily guarded entrance gate, as if he wanted to ask the guards a question,” said Anwar Wasfi, who was injured on his leg and arms. “Suddenly, an explosion occurred, and I was knocked over. I passed out and opened my eyes wounded in the hospital.”
A similar attack Wednesday, in which a suicide bomber blew himself up in a line of police recruits in the northern city of Irbil, killed 60 Iraqis and wounded 150.
Lawmakers from al-Jaafari’s United Iraqi Alliance said agreement has been reached on who would fill the oil and electricity ministries, which are destined for Shiites.
Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, oil minister in the former U.S.-appointed Governing Council, will return to the position, said Ali al-Dabagh, a Shiite lawmaker involved in the talks.
Mihsin Shlash, an independent Shiite lawmaker, will be electricity minister, al-Dabagh and two other lawmakers said.
