Suicide bomber kills police chief
BAGHDAD (AP) - January 24, 2008 The casualty toll from Wednesday's explosion rose to at least 34
dead and 224 injured, said Hisham al-Hamdani, the head of the
Ninevah provincial council. The blast obliterated a three-story
apartment building and ravaged adjacent houses just minutes after
the Iraqi army arrived to investigate tips about a weapons cache.
Brig. Gen. Salah Mohammed al-Jubouri, the police chief for
surrounding Ninevah province, was killed as he left the blast site
after being confronted by an angry crowd shouting "Allahu Akbar"
or "God is Great" while he inspected damage near the crater.
Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has become one of the
latest fronts in U.S.-led efforts to rid the country of
al-Qaida-linked militants who fled crackdowns in the capital and
surrounding areas. While the levels of violence have fallen in much
of the country, attacks have persisted north of Baghdad.
In Thursday's attack, a bomber disguised as a policeman blew
himself up as the entourage was just yards away from their
vehicles, said police spokesman Saeed al-Jubouri. Al-Jubouri is a
tribal name common in Mosul.
The police chief was killed, along with two other officers, and
five people were wounded, including three Iraqi police, an Iraqi
soldier and a U.S. soldier, the U.S. military said.
The military said initial reports indicated al-Qaida in Iraq was
behind Thursday's attack, but Wednesday's explosion remained under
investigation.
Ahmed Ibrahim, a 40-year-old tailor, said he went to the area
early Thursday to check on his shop and found the building intact.
But others were not so fortunate, finding entire blocks reduced to
rubble and a massive crater at least 30 feet deep where the
apartment building used to stand.
"The building that exploded has disappeared while the houses
next to it were leveled. Other houses farther away were damaged,"
Ibrahim said.
"When I stood near the leveled houses, I heard the voices of
people calling for help from under the debris. I went to the
firefighters and told them about the voices," he said. "Some
relatives were searching among the debris for their missing
relatives. The whole thing is a disaster."
On Sunday, U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said
the military had largely chased al-Qaida in Iraq out of all major
urban centers except Mosul, the country's third largest city and a
major transportation hub with highways leading west to Syria and
south to Baghdad.
"Mosul will continue to be a center of influence for, a center
of gravity for al-Qaida because of its key network of facilitation
- both financing and foreign fighters," he said. "The flow to
Mosul is critical for al-Qaida in Iraq."
Provincial Gov. Duraid Kashmola imposed an indefinite curfew
starting at noon Thursday in the city following the attack.
He said a preliminary investigation showed al-Qaida in Iraq was
behind Wednesday's explosion in a bid "to terrorize Mosul
residents."
Wednesday's explosion came after the Iraqi army received calls
that insurgents were using the vacant building as a shelter and a
bomb-making factory, police said.
A bulldozer worked through the night to clear the debris, with
vehicles providing light as dozens of people watched on the rim of
the water-filled crater, footage from the local TV station showed.
The TV footage showed one woman looking stunned as she held a
bandage to her face in an emergency room and doctors rushed to
treat a man whose face was bloodied.
The blast in Mosul was the latest in a series of bombings across
Iraq, including in some areas that have seen a relative calm
recently with the security gains from U.S.-Iraqi operations and a
Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq.
Al-Hamdani, the provincial council chief, said rescue operations
continued despite the attack on the police chief and he expected
the death toll to rise as more bodies were pulled from huge piles
of concrete rubble.
Many of the recent attacks have been against Sunni tribal
leaders and officials who have joined forces with the Americans
against al-Qaida in Iraq.
Clashes erupted for about two hours Thursday on the outskirts of
Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, between insurgents and members
of the local Awakening Council, as the U.S.-allied group is known.
A local police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because
he feared retribution, said two militants were killed.
In other violence, a roadside bomb struck a police patrol in
central Baghdad, killing two officers and injuring two, along with
three civilians, police said. The explosion was in the
predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Karradah.
An explosion also targeted a U.S. patrol in the mainly Shiite
northeastern neighborhood of Ur but killed one civilian and wounded
two others.
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Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this
report.