10 killed as bombs rip through Iraq

A SPATE of violence across Iraq has killed at least 10 people, as officials said repairs to government offices struck by massive bombings last week will cost about $US16 million ($17.5 million).

A UN special envoy, meanwhile, arrived in Baghdad to make a preliminary report on security in the Iraqi capital after the massive blasts and similar attacks in August killed 250 people.

In last night's deadliest attack, five people were killed and 37 wounded when a bomb hidden in a cooler on the back of a bicycle exploded in the Shi'ite city of Mussayib in Babil province.

Police said the bicycle had been left at the market in Mussayib, 60km south of Baghdad.

The western city of Ramadi, capital of the predominantly Sunni province of Al-Anbar, a former rebel stronghold, was targeted by two suicide bombings, police said.

One of the attackers detonated a car bomb at the city's western entrance, killing two people and wounding four others, according to Colonel Jabbar Ajaj.

Col Ajaj added that another suicide attacker blew himself up near a police station outside Ramadi, 100km from Baghdad, but killed only himself. No one was wounded.

In the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala, 110km south of the capital, a magnetic bomb affixed to a bus went off as the vehicle was approaching a security checkpoint, killing a woman.

The "sticky bomb" attack also wounded 12 people, including five women, medical and security officials said.

Meanwhile, a government employee and a lawyer were shot dead and two civilians were wounded in attacks in the restive northern city of Mosul.

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Source: The Australian

Police: 6 Al Qaeda Members Arrested Near Fallujah

BAGHDAD — Six suspected Al Qaeda members, including two who were formerly detained by U.S. troops in Iraq, were arrested near the western Iraqi city of Fallujah, a local police chief said on Thursday.

Col. Mahmoud al-Isawi said the six men were wanted on suspicion of involvement in "murders" and "attacks" in and around Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Al-Isawi didn't say when the arrests were made, but said the six are suspected of planning attacks and planting explosives that killed and injured civilians and members of the Iraqi security forces.

"The group is believed to be behind many murders and attacks against the citizens and the police forces," Al-Isawi told The Associated Press on Thursday. He didn't elaborate on specific attacks the men were allegedly involved in.

Fallujah is a city in the western Anbar province that was a hotbed of Iraq's Sunni-dominated insurgency and the scene of some of the most intense U.S. fighting with militants, before becoming a model of security gains in the country.

Al-Isawi said two of the six men arrested by the Iraqi police were previously detained by American troops. He said both were held in Camp Bucca, a U.S. military base in southern Iraq.

They were suspected by U.S. troops of having links with insurgents, but were released in July for lack of evidence, al-Isawi told The AP. Last month, American officials closed Camp Bucca, the U.S. troops' largest detention site in Iraq.

Iraqi and American forces have recently freed many detainees considered no longer a threat or wrongly jailed. Some former U.S. detainees have returned to violence after the release, Iraqi security officials claim.

Iraq is struggling to handle tens of thousands of detainees held in overcrowded prisons and makeshift jails.

The daunting task of managing prisons and processing thousands, detained in the past years on suspicion of links to the Sunni-led insurgency or Shiite-dominated militias during Iraq's sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007 will intensify next year when the U.S. military turns over control of its remaining detention facilities to Iraqi authorities.

Source: FoxNews

Iraqi Officials: 19 Dead in Anbar Bombings

BAGHDAD — A series of bombings killed at least 19 people and wounded 60 Sunday in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, said police and hospital officials, a worrying sign that violence may be on the rise in this former hotbed of the insurgency.

The first explosion occurred in a parking lot in Ramadi, when a parked car exploded near the police headquarters for Anbar province and the provincial council building, said a local police official.

As police and bystanders rushed to the scene, a second car parked in the vicinity blew up, said the police official. According to the official, a third vehicle exploded about an hour later near the gates to the Ramadi hospital.

Multiple explosions timed to kill rescuers and security forces responding to an earlier bomb were a hallmark of Al Qaeda in Iraq forces during the height of the insurgency.

One bystander, Musaab Ali Mohammed, said he was buying cigarettes from a shop near the police headquarters when he heard a big explosion and saw smoke billowing out from the parking lot.

"I saw police cars and firefighters, and they started to carry out the wounded and dead. ... Minutes later, a second explosion took place," he said, adding that many of the injured in the second blast appeared to be firefighters. "After that, policemen started to fire in the air and called upon civilians to leave, fearing a third blast."

The police and hospital official both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

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Source: FoxNews

Violence Looms in Iraq After Muslim Brotherhood Steals Anbar Elections. Voting fraud claims threaten to unravel the hard-won peace achieved in Anbar.

By Patrick Poole

The elections in Iraq this past Saturday, where voters took to the polls in 14 of the 18 provinces to select ruling provincial councils, have been acknowledged as the most peaceful since Saddam Hussein was deposed by U.S. forces in 2003.

And yet Reuters reported on Monday that what had been one of the best success stories for U.S. troops in Iraq — the transition of Anbar province from al-Qaeda insurgent stronghold to the most peaceful province in the country — threatens to unravel and possibly plunge the country back into civil war as the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) faces charges by Anbar Awakening tribal leaders that it rigged the elections in Anbar to their favor.

The IIP is the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in Iraq, ruling as part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s governing coalition and currently holding 36 of the 41 seats on the Anbar council. While many of the Awakening leaders did not participate in the previous 2005 elections, they actively campaigned this time around, forming an Anbar tribes list of candidates. And yet when many of their supporters ventured to the polls this weekend, they discovered that their names were not on the voting registration lists. In an effort to head off any possible violence, a curfew has been instituted along with a ban on nighttime vehicle traffic. Read more ...

Source: Pajamas Media