http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1380792,00.html
Explosion in house kills 28 in Baghdad Mystery over blast that left 10 investigating police officers dead Michael Howard in Sulaimaniya Thursday December 30, 2004 The Guardian At least 28 people - including 10 policemen - died in Baghdad yesterday in a huge explosion at a suspected militant safe-house that may have been booby-trapped. The blast was one of the largest to hit the capital since the US bombing raids during the war to remove Saddam Hussein. US army experts estimated that 1,700lb to 1,800lb of explosives had been detonated. Residents accounted for the majority of the fatalities and US soldiers and Iraqi troops worked through the night to pull potential survivors from the rubble. There were conflicting accounts of the cause of the blast. A spokesman at police headquarters in Baghdad said a police unit had been lured to a booby-trapped house in the Ghazaliya district after a bogus tip-off purporting to come from a neighbour. "It seems to have been a trap," the spokesman said. "When the police arrived and entered, the house blew up." The explosives were probably detonated by remote control, he said, and appeared to represent a disturbing new tactic by insurgents. But residents and policemen told a different story. They said the house in Ghazaliya, which lies near the main Baghdad-Falluja road, had been rented out to a Sudanese man and a "gang of foreign Arabs". They said it was being used to store explosives in preparation for attacks around Baghdad during the election period. One resident, who gave his name only as Jassim, said that a neighbour, known as Abu Taher, had telephoned police "to tell them that a terrorist cell was staying at the house". A day earlier Abu Taher had gone over to the house "to confront the gang and tell them to leave the area, but he was shot at", Jassim said. "The police arrived, surrounded the house and ordered those inside to come out. There was no response, the police went in, and then there was this huge bang," said Jassim, whose own house was flattened by the blast. Another resident, Abu Ammar al-Saadi, who also lost his house, said: "These were Arabs, not Iraqis, and they have destroyed my life for what?" It was another reminder of the destructive power in the hands of insurgents in their increasingly ferocious battle to derail Iraq's first post-Saddam elections in a month's time. An Iraqi official said last night that the rebels appeared to have recovered sufficiently from the US onslaught on their activities in Falluja in November to be "still able to conduct well-planned and large-scale operations". Hussein Ali Kemal, the deputy interior minister, said: "They are terrorists and they are murdering our police. They want to stop elections but we won't let that happen. We will destroy every terrorist who thinks they can take the place of the government." Yesterday's explosion came the day after a series of deadly attacks across central Iraq on the police and the national guard. A US military spokesman said a roadside blast wounded a US soldier and five Iraqi police officers in Samarra, where there were clashes yesterday between US forces and insurgents. In Mosul meanwhile, US troops backed by warplanes killed 25 guerrillas after facing a coordinated assault involv ing two suicide bombs and dozens of insurgents, the military said. Witnesses said the fighting began when a suicide bomber detonated a fuel truck outside a house occupied as a combat outpost by the Americans since last month. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings, US military spokesman in Mosul, said a patrol responding to the blast was attacked by a second suicide car bomb, and also had to deal with roadside bombs before reaching the outpost. Around 50 insurgents then attacked with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. "Close air support was called in. Initial estimates are 25 enemy killed," Col Hastings said, adding that 15 American soldiers were wounded. In an effort to boost the effectiveness of the country's nascent security capability, the defence ministry said yester day that the Iraqi national guard - which has borne the brunt of the anti-insurgency effort - would be merged with the regular armed forces. But US commanders responsible for training the new Iraqi forces are reported to believe that Iraq will not be ready to assume responsibility for its own security until sometime in 2006. Iraqi authorities and US military commanders in Iraq now believe the insurgency is being coordinated primarily by resurgent Ba'athists in a marriage of convenience with foreign Sunni Islamists. · Additional reporting by Osama Mansour ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
