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| Suicide bombings kill up to 17 in Iraq's Ramadi Posted: 27 Dec 2010 06:32 AM PST BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Twin suicide bombings rocked a government compound in Iraq's western city of Ramadi on Monday, killing 17 people, a deputy interior minister said.
It was the second attack on the compound this month and the third bombing there in the past year. "The death toll is 17 killed and between 50 and 60 wounded," Lieutenant General Hussein Kamal, a deputy interior minister, told Reuters. A police source said many of those wounded were policemen. Anbar Governor Qassim Mohammed said the first blast happened when a minibus exploded outside the compound and the second was caused by a suicide bomber on foot, disguised as a policeman. "Prime Minister (Nuri al-Maliki) has ordered an investigative committee to be formed due to the repeated targeting of (this) building in Anbar province," Kamal said. The sprawling desert province of Anbar was the heartland of a Sunni Islamist insurgency after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Its main cities, Ramadi and Falluja, witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the war. While overall violence in Iraq has dropped from the peak of sectarian warfare in 2006-7, bombings and attacks still occur daily, and insurgents are still capable of large-scale attacks. At the site of Monday's blasts, pools of blood dotted the ground, footage from Reuters Television showed. The stumps of the suicide bomber's severed legs lay at the scene. Debris from wrecked cars littered the site. "We were having breakfast at home this morning when we heard two loud explosions," said a man dressed in a traditional brown robe, standing at the gate of his house near the bomb site. "What do we need to do to be safe? There's nothing we can do but leave this area," he shouted. A doctor at Ramadi hospital, who declined to be named, said at least 14 people had been killed and 52 wounded, some of whom were in serious condition." The compound houses the provincial council as well as the police headquarters for Anbar province. AL QAEDA ATTACK Hikmet Khalaf, the deputy governor of Anbar, blamed the attack on the Iraqi wing of al Qaeda. "The goal of al Qaeda is clear, to strike at security in the province. This is not the first attack targeting the local government buildings. The attackers chose a crowded intersection in Ramadi to kill large numbers of civilians who were headed to the government buildings," he told Reuters. Earlier this month, Iraqi security forces arrested 39 al Qaeda militants, including the group's leadership in Anbar province and one of its top officers in Iraq. "The arrest of senior al Qaeda leaders in Anbar ... a month ago does not mean that al Qaeda has ended because al Qaeda has the ability to organize itself in a short period," Kamal said. "We were expecting such attacks from al Qaeda, not just in Anbar but in all of Iraq, to prove its presence at this stage, especially after the formation of a new government, to make the security forces look helpless, weak and like a failure." Iraq formed a new government last week after months of factional squabbling, subduing fears that insurgents could exploit the political vacuum to destabilise the country. The last attack on the government compound in Ramadi happened on Dec. 12, when a suicide car bomber killed 13 people and wounded dozens. In December 2009, twin suicide blasts killed at least 24 and wounded more than 100 just outside the provincial government headquarters in Ramadi. The governor of Anbar province was critically wounded in one of the attacks, but survived. Ramadi is 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad. (Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim; Writing by Serena Chaudhry; Editing by Caroline Drees) Copyright © 2010 Reuters | ||
| Morocco says cell plotting foreign attacks arrested Posted: 27 Dec 2010 05:56 AM PST RABAT (Reuters) - Security forces have arrested six Moroccans suspected of planning attacks in the country and abroad, the interior ministry said on Monday. The ministry did not reveal when or where they were arrested, but said the six were experts in making explosives and had planned to use them for attacks in unspecified countries. They also planned attacks using car bombs against foreign interests in Morocco and against Moroccan institutions and security facilities, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official MAP news agency. The cell was also "active in cyber-terrorism", the ministry added, without giving details on this aspect of its activity. "Members of this network have acquired a broad experience in the making of explosives and planned to use it in sabotage acts in several international hotspots ... as well as within national territory," it said. The statement did not name the foreign countries nor whose interests in Morocco were targeted by the alleged sabotage plots Violence linked to militancy is rare in Morocco, a staunch Western ally with a reputation for stability that has helped to entice millions of tourists to visit the country. The last big attack was a series of suicide bombings in the economic capital, Casablanca, in 2003 that killed 45 people. Since then security services say they have rounded up more than 60 radical cells. (Reporting by Zakia Abdennebi; editing by David Stamp) Copyright © 2010 Reuters |
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