BAGHDAD — A suicide truck bomb exploded in a volatile region of northern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 68 people and wounding nearly 200 more, even as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki pledged that attacks like it would not stop or slow the withdrawal of American troops.
Also on Saturday, the British government said the bodies of two men, believed to be among five Britons kidnapped by Shiite militants in 2007, had been turned over to British authorities in Baghdad.
The truck bombing, the worst single attack this year in Iraq, occurred shortly after noon prayers in a residential neighborhood near a mosque in Taza, a town south of Kirkuk, the capital of an oil-rich region that lies on the tense ethnic fault line between Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds, according to officials and witnesses.
The force of the blast gouged a crater in the ground and badly damaged dozens of homes, burying victims in the rubble, people and officials at the scene said, expressing fear that the death toll would rise even more.
The area is populated largely by the Turkmen, the third largest ethnic group in Iraq after Arabs and Kurds, who have their own territorial claims in the region.
The bombing took place only hours after Mr. Maliki spoke before a daylong conference of Turkmen political leaders at the Babel Hotel in Baghdad to discuss territorial disputes in Kirkuk and other issues ahead of national elections scheduled for January.
Mr. Maliki called for unity among Iraq’s ethnic groups and warned that “those who move in the dark” wanted “to affect the upcoming elections on the behalf of malicious motives and destructive goals.”
As he has in recent weeks, he also championed a June 30 deadline for the withdrawal of most American combat forces from Iraq’s cities — though he referred only broadly to “foreign forces” on Saturday, as he has been wont to do lately — and called the date both a day of “national unity” and “national challenge.”
He vowed that the latest attacks would not force Iraq to reconsider the deadline for American withdrawals, negotiated under the security agreement that took effect this year and affirmed by President Obama when he visited Iraq briefly in April, even if attacks continued.
“Even those who were talking about getting the occupiers, start to call for keeping foreign troops,” he said, without specifying whom, “but we are saying to them that those forces cannot stay.”
He urged Iraqis not to “be upset if a violation happens here or there” and pledged that the government would maintain security. “We will not retreat,” he said.
In London, the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said officials were trying to identify the bodies, which were handed over to British officials late Friday.
Five British citizens were captured in May 2007, including a computer consultant, Peter Moore, who was working in Iraq’s Finance Ministry, and four bodyguards. There was no word on the fate of the other three kidnapped men.
Mr. Miliband said that the remains had not been formally identified, but that the families of the hostages “fear the worst.” His reference to their “remains” suggests that the men might have died some time ago.
The announcement comes on the heels of the release by the American military earlier this month of a high-profile Shiite militant affiliated with the group believed to be responsible for the kidnapping. The release was part of a broad effort to persuade Shiite militant groups to put down their arms and join the political process and many hoped it would spur the release of the hostages.
Two Shiite leaders said the release was part of a deal that could lead to the release of the Britons. The United States did not confirm any link between the release of the militant and the hostages.
The group, Asa’ib al-Haq, spun off from the movement linked to the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr after he embraced a cease-fire. It is believed to have strong ties to the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to the American military.
Although violence has declined significantly since the worst of Iraq’s sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007, attacks continue almost daily against Iraqi and American forces, while an intermittent pattern of major attacks continue to wreak havoc, often aimed at civilians in markets, mosques and other public places.
On June 10, a car bomb killed at least 28 people at a market in Al Batha, near Nasiriya in largely Shiite southern Iraq. On May 20, a car bomb struck a popular takeout restaurant in a Shiite neighborhood in western Baghdad.
Many of the attacks appear intended to stoke sectarian tensions, and all have raised concerns — and increasingly anger — that Iraq’s security forces are not prepared to provide more security as American support steadily diminishes.
In Taza, Jenkiz Burhan, a taxi driver, said he lost his wife, his mother and his father in Saturday’s blast. “I blame the Iraqi government and the multinational forces,” he said.
Mustafa Abdullah Zain al-Abedeen, 28, a farmer, said he had returned home for lunch near the site of the bombing when the windows shattered and part of the ceiling collapsed.
“Then I got out of the house to find my neighbors’ house had been damaged,” he said in a hospital in Kirkuk, where many of the wounded were taken. “Smoke, fire and dust were everywhere. It was the first time in my life I saw such a scene.”
A police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, estimated that the truck carried two tons of explosives, which accounted for the extent of the damage. All of the victims appeared to be civilians.
“Our neighborhood is full of blood and bodies,” said Fatma Abdul Hussein, a resident. “Why? We do not want anything except to live in a secure and stable town.”
Filed under: Uncategorized by DOM
No Comments »