The Hindu : International : Suicide tanker targets police station

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 20, 2004

International

International

Suicide tanker targets police station

BAGHDAD, JULY 19. A white fuel tanker ploughed towards a police station in southwest Baghdad early on Monday, detonating and killing at least nine people and wounding about 52 others, Iraqi officials and witnesses said.

The tanker drove towards the police station at Seidiyeh neighbourhood in the capital as policemen took daily assignments from their officers, a wounded policemen said.

``We were all standing in a row, listening to our officer as he gave us our assignment for the day,'' said Mehdi Salah Abed Ali (32), lying in a bed at Al-Yarmuk hospital. ``There were many policemen standing in the square when the tanker exploded,'' he said. The explosion took place just after 8 a.m. local time.

At least nine people were killed, said Saad al-Alami, from the Iraqi Health Ministry.

Angry Iraqis gathered at the scene afterwards, chanting pro-Saddam Hussein slogans. They only dispersed after Iraqi National Guard police began firing in the air.

The tanker was within 150 metres of the two-storey police station, which is surrounded by a fence. The blast damaged mechanic and electrician workshops also in the area.

Militants also fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a fire station in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Salihiya, the U.S. military said. One person was wounded.

Top official killed

A senior official at Iraq's Defence Ministry has been shot dead in Baghdad, a spokesman said today, in the latest attack against the new administration three weeks after the transfer of sovereignty. ``One of the Director-Generals in the Ministry of Defence, Issam Jassem Kadhem, was assassinated yesterday at by unknown attackers,'' a Ministry spokesman said.

The Al-Qaeda-linked militant, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack. The Jordanian-born Zarqawi has also offered a $285,000 reward for the death of Iraq's Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi.

Pullout completed

The last Philippines troops in Iraq left the country on Monday to comply with the demands of militants holding a Filipino truck driver hostage, Iraqi police said.

The final contingent of troops drove over the border into Kuwait in a three-car convoy about 4:55 p.m. local time, said an Iraqi police official. — AP/AFP

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