The Hindu : Front Page : 68 killed in car bomb attack in Iraq

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 29, 2004

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Front Page

68 killed in car bomb attack in Iraq

By Atul Aneja

GORY KILLINGS: Bodies lying scattered on the ground at the site of a car bomb attackin Baquba, 65 km northeast of Baghdad, on Wednesday. Sixty-eight people were killed and 56 wounded in the attack outside a police station. — AP

MANAMA, JULY 28. At least 68 people were killed and 56 injured today in a car bomb explosion next to a police station in Baquba, a town south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Eyewitnesses said a suicide bomber drove his car into a line of men who had queued up for recruitment in the Iraqi police force, exactly a month after an interim Government backed by the United States assumed office.

The police station was situated in a crowded market area.

Iraqi guerrillas view policemen and aspirants for the security forces as legitimate targets because they are seen as supporters of the U.S. occupation.

The dead included 21 people travelling in a minibus, which the car bomber overtook before detonating the explosives.

The blast was so intense that it shattered glass in nearby cafes, pulled out facades off buildings and set other vehicles aflame.

People were seen dousing flames with hoses at the explosion site.

Bodies on fire

Many bodies were also on fire, surrounded by debris resulting from the blast. Police used pick-up trucks to take the dead and wounded to hospital.

High casualties

Officials said the police station was not damaged in the strike, but the casualty rate was high because a large number of recruits had spilled out of its premises into the streets outside. The station had been a target of a suicide bombing three months ago, and it was well protected with thick blast walls.

Al-Jazeera television quoted police officials as saying that Ansar al-Islam and other Al-Qaeda linked organisations might have carried out the attack. An organisation, which is called Ansar al-Sunna, had taken responsibility for a strike in Baquba on July 6, in which nine persons had been killed and 37 wounded.

Analysts say that after consolidating in Fallujah and Ramadi near Baghdad, the resistance was now seeking to tighten its grip in Baquba, as well as the cities of Samaara and Tirkit, north of the capital.

Day of violence

In a day that witnessed a marked spurt in violence, officers with the U.S.-led occupation forces said that seven Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 wounded during clashes near the town of Suwariya, south of Baghdad. A Polish military spokesman said 35 guerrillas were also killed and 40 captured.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, an Iraqi policeman was shot dead on Wednesday morning. One person was killed in a rocket explosion on a busy road in Baghdad today. On Tuesday night, one U.S. soldier was killed and three wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in Balad Ruz, north of Baghdad.

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