Irbil, Iraq – A suicide car bomber killed at least 15 traffic police and wounded about 100 more today outside the unit’s headquarters in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil, police and hospital officials said.
Iraq’s insurgency appeared unfazed by two massive U.S.-Iraqi military offensives against militant smuggling routes and training centers west and north of Baghdad, mounting attacks that have killed at least 73 in the past two days – including 28 people today.
A roadside bomb also killed a U.S. soldier on patrol near Tal Afar, 90 miles east of the Syrian border, the military said. The soldier belonged to the 1st Corps Support Command and was not part of the two major offensives taking part in the western Anbar province.
Militants, meanwhile, claimed in a Web posting that they killed a foreign contractor working for a U.S. company along with six of his Iraqi guards in an ambush west of Baghdad.
The bomber in Irbil wore a police uniform and slammed his car into a gathering of some 200 traffic police during roll call in a courtyard behind the headquarters this morning, police Lt. Sulaiman Mohammed said.
Dr. Mohammed Ali of Irbil General Hospital revised his earlier count of 20 dead to 13, saying he miscounted bodies amid the confusion. Massive car bombs usually scatter body parts over wide areas and emergency services often miscount them.
Dr. Tahseen Hassan reported that Irbil Teaching Hospital received one body from the blast. Another injured man died at yet another hospital.
The attack occurred on a main street that leads to the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, which is south of Irbil, police said.
Irbil, one of two major cities in Iraq’s Kurdish region, has enjoyed autonomous rule under Western protection since 1991. The area has been largely sheltered from the violence in the rest of Iraq but has seen several major bombings blamed on militant Muslim groups.
On Sunday, a suicide bomber walked into a crowded Baghdad kebab restaurant near the heavily fortified main gate of U.S. and Iraqi government headquarters at the Green Zone, killing at least 23 people, including policemen – the deadliest attack in the capital in just over six weeks. A total of 45 people were killed in insurgent assaults throughout the country Sunday.
Most of the suicide attackers are thought to belong to extremist groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has authorized members to kill other Muslims, including women and children, in their quest to destabilize the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The rate of insurgent attacks has risen dramatically since al-Jaafari announced his Cabinet on April 28. At least 1,180 people have been killed since then.
Some extremists also have started threatening fellow Sunni Arabs, who make up the insurgency’s core, because some leaders of the minority Muslim sect have expressed a readiness to join the political process. Most Sunnis boycotted January’s historic election.
In the Internet claim, the militant group Ansar al-Sunnah Army said its fighters attacked a convoy leaving a base near the town of Ramadi, killing the seven men and capturing two other Iraqi guards.
The statement did not say when the attack took place.
The claim could not be confirmed. The statement, posted on a Web forum often used by Ansar al-Sunnah and other militant groups, included pictures of the contractor’s identification cards.
The cards identified him as Binkumar Gurung, working for the American-Iraq Solution Group, contracted by the Pentagon to do work in Iraq. The cards included a license to carry weapons.
The statement said the contractor was Japanese, but no passport was included and his picture and name appeared to be South Asian.
One of the cards also gave his name as “Gurung Bilprasad, alias Binkumar.” Today, Sunni Arabs were expected to name their representatives to a committee that has less than two months before the mid-August deadline to draft Iraq’s new constitution. The number of Sunni members took weeks to negotiate with the Shiite majority.
Elsewhere, a band of insurgents launched a bold assault on a Baghdad police station killing eight policemen and an 8-month-old baby early today, police said. At least 23 were wounded.
The attack on the Baya police station in southwestern Baghdad began just before dawn and included two car suicide bombs, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, police Capt. Talib Thamir said.
Gunmen killed three members of the Kurdish Peshmerga militia
Today near a camp in the town of Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad, Dr. Muhanad Jawad said from the capital, where the bodies were brought.
At least one American has died since the new military campaigns – code-named Spear and Dagger – began Friday and Saturday, respectively, in Anbar province. About 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces are taking part in each offensive.
At least 1,721 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Operations Spear and Dagger are aimed at destroying militant networks near the Syrian border and north of Baghdad, the military said. About 60 insurgents have been killed and 100 captured.
Troops on the ground said they found foreign passports and one roundtrip air ticket from Tripoli, in Libya, to Damascus, Syria.
They found two passports from Sudan, two from Saudi Arabia, two from Libya, two from Algeria and one from Tunisia.
Intelligence officials believe Anbar province is a portal for extremist groups, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Iraq, to smuggle in foreign fighters. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq.
Operation Spear appeared to be winding down and U.S. Marines reported finding a weapons cache in the town of Karabilah early today, including two dozen RPG launchers, heavy machine guns and equipment to make up to 25 bombs.
The dusty town is about 200 miles west of Baghdad and near Qaim, on the Syrian border.
Troops also found a large number of explosives in the building and conducted a controlled blast, leveling an entire block, according to an AP reporter in the town. Many residents had already left their homes for safer areas and portions of the town have been reduced to rubble.
U.S. Marines reported killing 15 insurgents Sunday in battles near Fallujah, the Anbar province town 40 miles west of Baghdad and a perennial insurgent stronghold.
