A yellow taxi loaded with explosives blew up at the crowded front gates of a prison north of Baghdad on Monday morning, killing at least 13 people, many of them security guards or civilians waiting to visit jailed family members.
It was the third attack in less than a week and the latest in a deadly streakthat has killed about 50 Iraqis and further highlighted fears of increased insurgent attacks as the United States continues its military withdrawal from Iraq by the end of next month.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, but the tactics used and the target involved — a suicide bombing in a crowd at a large government compound — suggested the work of the Al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq.
The American ambassador, James F. Jeffrey, told reporters on Sunday that there was a “good possibility” that the affiliate, Al Qaeda in Iraq, had been responsible for a bombing in the southern city of Basra on Thursday and for deadly explosions in Baghdad on Saturday. Military defeats inflicted by Iraqi and American forces have hobbled the Sunni insurgent group, but it still carries out about 30 attacks across the country every week, military officials have said.
“The Al Qaeda in Iraq organization is still active, particularly in the north, but they strike throughout the country,” Mr. Jeffrey said, although he added that security had improved in Iraq over all.
The taxi involved in the attack on Monday pulled up to a security post at the entrance to the Al-Hout prison in Taji, about 10 miles north of the capital, about 8 a.m. The entrance was crowded with visitors and security guards heading to work.
“Everything was on fire,” said Kadim Mohammed, a security guard who was wounded in the blast. “I saw two dead children.”
Security officials said four civilians, four prison employees and five people who had not been identified were killed. At least 28 people were wounded, including several religious pilgrims whose bus, bound for the shrine of Samarra, had been stuck in traffic near the prison entrance.
The explosion did not appear to be intended to breach the walls of the prison, which is set back from the roadside gates.
Separately, two civilians were killed by a bomb attached to their car in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour.
A spokesman for the Kurdistani Alliance political bloc was also wounded when a mortar round hit a parking lot near Parliament inside the heavily secured Green Zone, government officials said. The fortified area houses the American Embassy and a number of Iraqi ministries and politicians’ residences and is frequently that target of rockets and mortars fired by Shiite militia groups.more information...
Source: http://www.nytimes.com
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