Baghdad – Three suicide bombers driving trucks rigged with tanks of toxic chlorine gas struck targets in heavily Sunni Anbar province, including the office of a Sunni tribal leader opposed to al-Qaeda. The attacks killed at least two people and sickened 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops, the U.S. military said Saturday.
The violence started Friday when a driver detonated explosives in a pickup carrying chlorine at a checkpoint northeast of the provincial capital of Ramadi, wounding one U.S. service member and one Iraqi civilian, the military said in a statement.
Two hours later, a dump truck exploded in Amiriyah, south of Fallujah, killing two policemen and leaving as many as 100 residents with symptoms of chlorine exposure ranging from minor skin and lung irritations to vomiting, the military said.
Another suicide bomber detonated a dump truck containing a 200-gallon chlorine tank rigged with explosives 3 miles south of Fallujah in the Albu Issa tribal region, the military said. U.S. forces found about 250 civilians, including seven children, suffering from symptoms related to chlorine exposure, according to the statement.
Four other bombings have released chlorine gas since Jan. 28, and the U.S. military has warned that insurgents are adopting new tactics in a campaign to spread panic.
The primary effect of the chlorine attacks has been to do just that. Although the gas can be fatal, the heat from the explosions can render the gas nontoxic. Victims in the recent chlorine blasts died from the explosions and not the effects of the gas.
Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier was shot to death in fighting Saturday in Baqubah, the military said. On Friday, a roadside bomb killed a soldier and wounded three others on a foot patrol south of Baghdad, the military said.
