Militants blasted their way into government offices in central Iraq on Tuesday with two car bombs and suicide explosions that killed seven people and mirrored a similar March raid claimed by Al-Qaeda.
Map locating Baquba in Iraq where militants blasted their way into government offices with two car bombs and suicide explosions that killed seven people and mirrored a similar March raid claimed by Al-Qaeda. Officials warned that the toll, which included 17 wounded, could rise.
Large numbers of Iraqi police and soldiers were deployed to the scene, with military helicopters hovering overhead and periodically firing onto the building, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
The attack raises concerns over the capabilities of Iraq's security forces, with just months to go before US soldiers must leave the country under the terms of a bilateral security pact.
Insurgents set off two car bombs against the perimeter wall of the provincial government compound, opening the way for the militants to storm it, and set off twin suicide blasts inside the building itself.
Iraqi security forces were surrounding the compound and imposed a city-wide curfew.
Ahmed Alwan, a doctor at Baquba's main hospital, and an official at Diyala's security command centre both said seven people were killed and 17 wounded.
Tuesday's violence came as Diyala's provincial council was holding its weekly meeting, and closely mirrored a similar March 29 attack, claimed by Al-Qaeda, on Salaheddin governorate offices in Tikrit that left 58 people dead.
That attack saw gunmen swarm the provincial government building after a suicide bomber cleared the way. Security reinforcements that arrived 20 minutes later were met by a car bomb, and for more than five hours, the gunmen had kept security forces at bay.
Diyala province, which is majority Sunni but with a substantial Shiite population, lies north of Baghdad and was a stronghold of Al-Qaeda during the peak of sectarian violence in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.
Unrest has declined in the province and nationwide since that time, but Diyala remains one of Iraq's most dangerous regions.
Attacks have seemingly been on the rise, however, since the beginning of the year, according to private security firm AKE Group. It said last week that violent incidents averaged more than 10 per day in May, up from four-to-five daily attacks in January.
Some 45,000 US troops remain stationed in Iraq, but must all withdraw by the end of the year. American officials have been pressing their counterparts in Baghdad to decide quickly whether or not to extend the military presence beyond year-end.
The issue is complicated by bickering within Iraq's national unity government, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki still having not appointed ministers of defence and interior since elections 16 months ago.
Maliki holds both positions on an interim basis.
In Baghdad on Tuesday, meanwhile, gunmen shot dead Ahmed Hassan, the head of the legal department in Baghdad's provincial government, an interior ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Violence in Iraq is down from its peak in 2006 and 2007 but attacks remain common. A total of 177 people were killed in violence in May, according to official figures.
0 comments