Global General
Gunmen, bombs kill 30 in assaults across Iraq
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-05-10 20:05
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 A woman, injured in a bomb blast at dawn outside the homes of police officers in Falluja, waits for treatment at a hospital in Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad May 10, 2010. [Agencies] |
BAGHDAD: Gunmen using weapons fitted with silencers attacked checkpoints and suicide bombers targeted shoppers in a marketplace as insurgents launched assaults in Iraq on Monday that killed at least 30 people.
The attacks in different parts of Baghdad and in towns to the south, north and west of the capital appeared aimed at showing Iraqis that al Qaeda in Iraq was still a potent force despite suffering battlefield defeats in recent weeks.
They also occurred as Iraq remained gripped by political uncertainty two months after an inconclusive election that pitted a cross-sectarian bloc backed by minority Sunnis against the main Shi'ite-led political coalitions.
At dawn in Baghdad, gunmen equipped with silencers killed at least seven Iraqi soldiers and policemen when they attacked six checkpoints, while bombs planted at three others wounded several more, an Interior Ministry source said.
All the checkpoints were attacked around the same time, the source said, asking not to be identified.
"This was a message to us that they can attack us in different parts of the city at the same time because they have cells everywhere," he said.
In separate incidents, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed two people in south Baghdad, a car bomb in Tarmiya on the capital's northern outskirts killed three and wounded 16, bombs outside policemen's homes in the western province of Anbar killed four and a suicide car bomber in the northern city of Mosul killed two.
In total more than 30 people were killed and 100 wounded.
The attacks on checkpoints using silencers, intended to add an element of surprise and to sow confusion, showed a new tactic was being used by a weakened yet still dangerous Sunni Islamist insurgency after government forces dealt a series of blows to al Qaeda's local network in recent weeks.
Overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply since the height of sectarian warfare in 2006/07 but the March 7 election that produced no clear winner has fuelled tensions.
The cross-sectarian alliance led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite, rode strong support from Sunnis to take a two-seat lead in the parliamentary vote.
Iraq's main Shi'ite-led coalitions, however, have agreed to form an alliance that would deprive Allawi of a chance to try to form the next government, potentially angering Sunnis.
