Nearly 50 dead in Iraq bloodshed

FE Team | Published: June 09, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

BAGHDAD, Jun 8 (AFP): At least 49 people have died in a two-day surge of violence in Iraq, including 16 in two car bombs Friday, as an American general admitted the US military surge would likely only have temporary impact.
Two near simultaneous vehicle explosions killed 16 people and wounded another 32 early Friday in the town of Al-Khurna, north of Iraq's southern city of Basra where the British troops are based.
Police and medical officials said the explosions -- a bomb in a minibus at a bus station and a car bomb in a market -- rocked the town at around 7:30 am (0330 GMT).
"First, a minibus exploded at a bus station in Al-Khurna and around the same time another car bomb exploded in a market in the town," said First Lieutenant Imad Abdul Wahid from Khurna police.
A medic in the town's local hospital confirmed the attacks.
"We received 16 killed and 32 wounded, including many women and children from both attacks," said Doctor Mohammed Nawruz of Khurna hospital.
Another 33 people have died in a series of brutal assaults across the violence-wracked country since Thursday, including 14 people killed during an attack by unknown gunmen on the house of police Colonel Ali al-Jurani in the restive province of Diyala.
Jurani, the head of Diyala's emergency police unit in the town of Kan'an, south of the provincial capital of Baquba, told AFP that among those killed in Thursday night's attack were his wife and brother, while his three children were kidnapped.
"Several armed men attacked my house at 10:00 pm (1800 GMT) and killed 14 people, including my wife, brother and my 12 bodyguards," said a distraught Jurani.
"The attackers also kidnapped my three children -- two boys and a girl."
Diyala is the second most dangerous province in Iraq after Baghdad and insurgents have stepped up attacks in the region following a massive crackdown in the Iraqi capital since February.
The other 19 people who died Thursday were killed in a series of attacks on the Iraqi security forces, including nine hit by a suicide truck bombing of a police station near the Syrian border in the northwest of the country.
The latest wave of violence comes as US President George W Bush's new "war czar" acknowledged past misgivings about the surge of US troops into Iraq.
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, who was nominated by Bush last month to oversee the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Iraqi authorities and other US agencies needed to step up alongside the US military.
"I expressed concerns in the policy development phase... that this not be simply a one-dimensional surge," the three-star army general, 54, told his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday.
The surge climaxing this month would "likely have only temporary and localised effects" unless it was accompanied by "counterpart surges" by the Iraqi government and civilian US government departments, Lute said.
"We are in the early days and time will tell," he added, while insisting that the United States must prevail in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush announced in January that the United States was deploying more than 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, bringing the total to 160,000 by this month.
US General David Petraeus, commander of allied forces in Iraq, is due to report back in September on the surge's impact as many Democrats agitate for an early withdrawal of US troops.