Police under attack in Iraq
A car bomb rocked the headquarters of Iraq’s US-backed police force in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing one officer and wounding 14 bystanders.
Two were seriously hurt.
According to reports, the bomb was hidden in a car parked in a garage near the office of the chief of the Rafasa police headquarters.
The bomb went off at 11:15 local time (15:15 GMT), police said.
It is thought US-appointed police chief, Hassan al-Obeidi, was the target of the attack.
The blast follows on a series of bomb attacks in the past few weeks, including the car bomb in the city of Najaf on Friday which killed Shiite cleric Mohammed al-Hakim.
Massive blasts have occurred at the UN headquarters and the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad.
Over 70 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since May 1, the date when US President Bush declared the Iraq war effectively over.
Dr. Hamid al-Bayati of the US-supported, Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, bemoaned the ‘failure’ of the US-led coalition to implement security in post-conflict Iraq and blamed Saddam Hussein’s loyalists for the attack on the UN headquarters.
He said: “With the Americans forces there we thought they would close the borders and be in charge so that it would not be that easy for al-Qaeda members to cross the border to be active in Iraq in such a way. It is a military failure and security failure.
“The attack on the UN was an attempt by Saddam Hussein loyalists to not allow the UN to play a role in Iraq because they know that, with the UN involved, there would be more nations involved.”
