Damage done by bomb in Iraq. The U.S. still maintains nearly 100,000 troops in the country. The U.S.-backed government inside the country is preparing for national elections.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
18:53 Mecca time, 15:53 GMT
Suicide bombers target Iraq city
The blasts follow a threat by al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq that he will disrupt the upcoming elections
At least 29 people have been killed and 42 more wounded in three powerful co-ordinated suicide attacks in the central Iraqi city of Baquba.
Just days before parliamentary elections are due to be held, attackers targeted a government building, a nearby traffic intersection and, later, the hospital where the wounded were being treated.
Reporting that the toll is likely to rise, Al Jazeera's Anita MacNaught said the explosions on Wednesday were a "carefully co-ordinated series of attacks".
"This is far from unprecedented. If what we're hearing is true, the local police chief was the target of the third suicide bomb," she said.
"The bomber followed crowds of the wounded into the hospital and detonated himself in an effort to get the police chief as well," our correspondent said.
Major General Abdul Hussein al-Shimmari, the police chief, escaped unharmed but a number of his personal security team were wounded.
The attacks, coming despite heightened security across the country ahead of Sunday's vote, were the deadliest to hit Iraq in nearly a month.
Al-Qaeda threat
"Diyala [Baquba is the capital of the Diyala province] has been quiet in the lead up to the election. It was, of course, one of the most violence-stricken provinces back in 2007, but this is a dramatic escalation of violence there," MacNaught added.
The bombings follow a threat by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, that he would disrupt elections by "military means".
Before hitting Baquba's main hospital, bombers in explosives-laden vehicles targeted the city's provincial housing department's offices and a nearby intersection at around 9:30am (06:30 GMT).
The first vehicle crashed through the entrance to the provincial housing department's compound, which sits next to a police station, before exploding.
Moments later, at a nearby traffic intersection, a suicide bomber detonated explosives packed into his vehicle, triggering a powerful blast.
The hospital bombing occurred a short time later.
Election security
Iraqis go to the polls on March 7, the second such vote since Saddam Hussein, the former president, was ousted in 2003.
Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from Baghdad, said there had been a spike in violence across the country in the lead-up to the election.
He said a number of measures have been taken to ensure security.
"There will be 48-hour period of calm before the voting takes place during which no campaigning can happen. There are also indications that there will be a curfew in major areas throughout the country.
"The safeguards are in place but there have been security safeguards in place for a period of time ... Bombings such as [in Baquba] today and bombings in Baghdad in recent weeks indicate that no matter how tight the security, bombers seeking to disrupt the election process could find a way."
Last Sunday, Iraq's national security adviser told the AFP news agency that security forces had found and prevented at least 10 vehicle bombs in the past month as al-Qaeda and other rebel groups sought to target the election.
Safa Hussein said most of those bombs, which would have caused "very major damage", would have targeted Baghdad.
The parliamentary elections are seen by Washington as a crucial precursor to a complete US military withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011.
The UN's envoy to Iraq has said that while he was concerned by the level of violence, it had not affected preparations for the elections.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
U.S. occupation behind Iraq’s turmoil
By John Catalinotto
Published Feb 28, 2010 9:01 PM
As the March 7 national election approaches in Iraq, the number of U.S. troops occupying the country has slipped below 100,000 for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion seven years ago. The Pentagon plans to change the name of its Iraq effort on Sept. 1, from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” to “Operation New Dawn” when 50,000 troops remain.
The play with words and numbers hasn’t changed the basic reality in Iraq. There are still 98,000 U.S. troops there. They still have the leverage on power. A sovereign election can’t be held in an occupied country.
If and when the last U.S. troops are ushered out, the best name for that effort would be “Operation End the Nightmare.” Seven years of invasion and occupation have brought neither freedom nor the promise of a fresh start, but have brought Iraq to the brink of destruction as a country.
A report from the BRussells Tribunal, resulting from an attempt last October to raise a legal case against U.S./U.K. aggression and occupation, gives a bleak picture of where life is at today in Iraq:
“From the start of the implementation of a U.S.-instigated and dominantly administered sanctions regime [August 1990] up to the present day, an approximate total of 2.7 million Iraqis have died as a direct result of sanctions followed by the U.S.-U.K. led war of aggression on, and occupation of, Iraq beginning in 2003. Among those killed during the sanctions period were 560,000 children.
“From 2003 onwards, having weakened Iraq’s civil and military infrastructure to the degree that its people were rendered near totally defenseless, Iraq was subject to a level of aggression of near unprecedented scale and nature in international history.”
This took place along with “funding of sectarian groups and militias that would play a key role in fragmenting the country under occupation, ... the collapse of all public services and state protection for the Iraqi people, the further destruction of the health and education systems of Iraq, and the creation of waves of internal and external displacement totaling nearly 5 million Iraqis;” overall there are “5 million orphans” and “3 million widows.” (brusselstribunal.org)
Those are the numbers that should be kept in mind when the Pentagon and war criminals like former Vice President Dick Cheney and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair boast of the achievements of the Iraq occupation. What the U.S. and Britain have achieved is fomenting an internecine battle among different groupings inside Iraq. This has prevented the Iraqis from waging a united struggle to liberate their country from the occupation.
The imperialists have left Iraq in shambles. And they have not yet left Iraq.
An electoral sham
The March 7 election — should it take place as scheduled — will be as much a farce as the one held in Afghanistan last summer. A complete client state, which was only able to take power with the force of the occupation behind it, is organizing the elections. It is organizing them in order to consolidate power for the groupings that support Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
These are parties that opposed the Ba’athist government led by Saddam Hussein. Al-Maliki signed the papers hurrying the execution of the Iraqi leader on Dec. 30, 2006. At that time Saddam Hussein was a symbol of struggle for a significant section of the Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-led occupation.
During the electoral campaign, al-Maliki’s government outlawed the candidacy of 454 people who were running for national office, claiming that these individuals were too close to the Ba’ath Party. Some 171 of these candidates appealed the decision disqualifying them. In February a panel of judges appointed for the purpose rejected the appeals of all but 26 candidates.
Following this decision barring the most secular of the candidates, the Iraqi National Movement coalition led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi announced it would temporarily suspend its campaign and demanded that the bans be reversed. On Feb 21, one of the parties in this coalition, the mostly Sunni National Dialog Front, announced that it would boycott the election.
There is still a chance the election will fall apart. Even if the vote takes place, as in Afghanistan, it will be a fraud having nothing to do with democracy. U.S. troops — even if they are not engaged in daily battles in Iraq — still remain the final arbiters of Iraqi politics.
Washington may prefer a stable puppet regime in Iraq so it can move most of its troops to Afghanistan. But the U.S. forces will continue to try to play off one sector of Iraqi society against another — whatever the consequences for the Iraqis — if the U.S. dominates the region.
E-mail: jcat@workers.org
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