Twin suicide bombing kills 28 policemen

BAGHDAD – At least 28 policemen were killed and 25 injured Monday when twin suicide bombers attacked Iraq’s interior ministry where ministers and the US ambassador were attending a parade to mark Police Day.

The Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet message. Both bombers wore police uniforms.Guards at the ministry gate in Baghdad opened fire on one of them, but the bullets detonated the explosives strapped to his body, a security official said.As police crowded around his remains, a second suicide bomber approached and blew himself up, wreaking carnage.The dead included a major who was responsible for ministry security.A mortar shell was also fired but fell next door in the police academy, causing no damage.The group headed by Iraq’s most-wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the attack was to avenge the “torture” of Sunni Muslims at the interior ministry.”The lions of unification led a new raid against the ministry of interior…to avenge the Sunnis who were subjected to all sorts of torture at the prisons of this ministry,” it said in a statement, which could not be independently authenticated.Abuse scandals came to the fore in November and December when US and Iraqi forces discovered two overcrowded interior ministry detention centres.Some inmates had reportedly been tortured.Sunni leaders have repeatedly alleged abuses at the hands of Shiite-dominated interior ministry forces.The Organisation of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia said “the lions chose the day when the apostates were gathered to celebrate (Iraqi Police Day).””Two brothers …managed to cross nine checkpoints and blew up their explosive belts,” it said.Top officials, including Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solah, Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, were watching the annual police celebration when the attack occurred 200 yards away.US paper The Christian Science Monitor on Monday named a female US journalist kidnapped in Iraq as freelancer Jill Carroll, who was on assignment for the US-based paper.Carroll was abducted in western Baghdad on Saturday, by kidnappers who killed her Iraqi interpreter, the paper said in a statement calling for her release.The incident had previously been reported from Baghdad, but Carroll had not been identified.”We are urgently seeking information about Ms.Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure her release,” said Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim.French hostage Bernard Planche, a 52-year-old engineer, who escaped at the weekend after five weeks of captivity in Iraq arrived back in France late on Monday saying he was delighted to “return to civilisation.”In another development, the electoral commission announced a delay in releasing its findings into fraud allegations in last month’s Iraqi elections.”There are still four to five small outstanding items,” Abdul Hussein al-Hindawi, a member of the Iraqi electoral commission board, told AFP.The commission said the findings would be announced next weekend, after the three-day Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.”The commission will also announce preliminary results in the days after Eid,” the commission said, referring to the landmark vote.The delay will also give extra time to a group of foreign monitors to wind up a separate probe into the December 15 poll – the first to elect a permanent parliament in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.The developments came as a senior Shiite leader accused US officials of trying to hobble Iraqi security forces in their fight against insurgents who frequently target the country’s majority Shiite community.Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the leading Supreme Council of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI), warned in an interview on CNN television that Shiites were losing patience and might take the law into their own hands.The US ambassador, for his part, renewed earlier warnings that security institutions should be reformed and militias disbanded.”They are a threat to Iraqi security and could produce future civil conflict and warlordism,” he said in a column published in the Wall Street Journal.Khalilzad also urged Iraqis to form as broad-based a government as possible to undermine the insurgents.Meanwhile, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, who last month said he was resigning his job as oil minister, has returned to his post, the government announced.- Nampa-AFPBoth bombers wore police uniforms.Guards at the ministry gate in Baghdad opened fire on one of them, but the bullets detonated the explosives strapped to his body, a security official said.As police crowded around his remains, a second suicide bomber approached and blew himself up, wreaking carnage.The dead included a major who was responsible for ministry security.A mortar shell was also fired but fell next door in the police academy, causing no damage.The group headed by Iraq’s most-wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the attack was to avenge the “torture” of Sunni Muslims at the interior ministry.”The lions of unification led a new raid against the ministry of interior…to avenge the Sunnis who were subjected to all sorts of torture at the prisons of this ministry,” it said in a statement, which could not be independently authenticated.Abuse scandals came to the fore in November and December when US and Iraqi forces discovered two overcrowded interior ministry detention centres.Some inmates had reportedly been tortured.Sunni leaders have repeatedly alleged abuses at the hands of Shiite-dominated interior ministry forces.The Organisation of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia said “the lions chose the day when the apostates were gathered to celebrate (Iraqi Police Day).””Two brothers …managed to cross nine checkpoints and blew up their explosive belts,” it said.Top officials, including Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solah, Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, were watching the annual police celebration when the attack occurred 200 yards away.US paper The Christian Science Monitor on Monday named a female US journalist kidnapped in Iraq as freelancer Jill Carroll, who was on assignment for the US-based paper.Carroll was abducted in western Baghdad on Saturday, by kidnappers who killed her Iraqi interpreter, the paper said in a statement calling for her release.The incident had previously been reported from Baghdad, but Carroll had not been identified.”We are urgently seeking information about Ms.Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure her release,” said Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim.French hostage Bernard Planche, a 52-year-old engineer, who escaped at the weekend after five weeks of captivity in Iraq arrived back in France late on Monday saying he was delighted to “return to civilisation.”In another development, the electoral commission announced a delay in releasing its findings into fraud allegations in last month’s Iraqi elections.”There are still four to five small outstanding items,” Abdul Hussein al-Hindawi, a member of the Iraqi electoral commission board, told AFP.The commission said the findings would be announced next weekend, after the three-day Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.”The commission will also announce preliminary results in the days after Eid,” the commission said, referring to the landmark vote.The delay will also give extra time to a group of foreign monitors to wind up a separate probe into the December 15 poll – the first to elect a permanent parliament in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.The developments came as a senior Shiite leader accused US officials of trying to hobble Iraqi security forces in their fight against insurgents who frequently target the country’s majority Shiite community.Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the leading Supreme Council of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI), warned in an interview on CNN television that Shiites were losing patience and might take the law into their own hands.The US ambassador, for his part, renewed earlier warnings that security institutions should be reformed and militias disbanded.”They are a threat to Iraqi security and could produce future civil conflict and war
lordism,” he said in a column published in the Wall Street Journal.Khalilzad also urged Iraqis to form as broad-based a government as possible to undermine the insurgents.Meanwhile, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, who last month said he was resigning his job as oil minister, has returned to his post, the government announced. – Nampa-AFP

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