Suicide bombers, militias kill 35 in northern Iraq
MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) — A suicide bomber smashed a police base in northern Iraq and another blew up a patrol on Thursday, killing 20 people as a pro-government militia killed 15 suspected Al-Qaeda fighters, officials said.
The surge in violence came as the US military announced plans to withdraw 4,000 more troops after saying the level of violence was at a four-year low.
A man in an explosives-packed jacket blew himself up at police headquarters in Sinjar, a town on the road to Syria from the main northern city of Mosul. A hospital source said 17 people were killed and 30 wounded.
Interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf said the local police chief was suspended pending investigations.
The authorities in Nineveh province slapped a ban on cars without passengers in a move aimed at minimising the risk of suicide car bomb attacks which are usually launched by lone drivers.
The mountains around Sinjar are a major centre for Iraq's non-Muslim Yazidi Kurdish community and saw the single deadliest attack since the US-led invasion of 2003.
Last August, suicide bombers in lorries killed more than 400 people in two Yazidi villages near Sinjar.
Only hours before Thursday's attack, a suicide bomber targeted a group of police officers in Al-Gabat, a northern neighbourhood of Mosul, police said.
At least three people, including two policemen, were killed and 12 people wounded.
Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, is regarded by the American military as the last urban bastion of Al-Qaeda, and Iraqi and US forces have waged a major crackdown against jihadists in the area since May 14.
In neighbouring Salaheddin province, a militia allied to US and government forces killed 15 suspected Al-Qaeda members at Tikrit, 180 kilometres (112 miles) north of Baghdad.
Members of the Sunni "Awakening" movement opened fire as the suspects tried to escape from the vehicle at a checkpoint, militia official Ahmed al-Dulaini said.
Khalaf said 10 of those killed were believed to be would-be suicide bombers fleeing Mosul because of the anti-jihadist crackdown.
Thursday's attacks came as the US military announced plans to withdraw another 4,000 troops next month.
It will be the fourth brigade to withdraw out of five deployed under the controversial "surge" strategy in February 2007, which saw an extra 30,000 soldiers poured into Iraq to curb sectarian violence.
"The brigade played an integral role in establishing the conditions for long-term security in Iraq by reducing violence in Diyala province by 70 percent," a military statement said.
On Sunday, American officials said without giving casualty figures that Iraq was seeing the lowest level of violence in four years.
The independent website www.icasualties.org shows the US death toll so far this month was 19, the lowest average since the invasion.
Total US losses in Iraq since 2003 stand at 4,084, according to the website.
Washington has said it wants to withdraw the 30,000 troops by July and then have a 45-day evaluation period before considering overall force levels.
Earlier this month it said 152,500 US troops were deployed across Iraq together with an estimated 10,000 from other countries. The total coalition strength is currently placed at 161,000.
US military spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll said violence had declined 70 percent since the surge.
"Iraqi-wide we have seen a significant reduction in violence in the past week," Driscoll said on Sunday. "Security incidents decreased to a level not seen since March 2004."
But he cautioned that Al-Qaeda still posed a serious challenge and had the ability to stage suicide bombings and fuel sectarian clashes.
Meanwhile Iraq's international backers met in Stockholm on Thursday to take stock of reconstruction and development.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is hosting the conference alongside UN chief Ban Ki-moon with the hope of winning debt forgiveness and more foreign aid to rebuild the ravaged nation.
In other developments, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied new charges the Bush administration misled the public into invading the country.
The allegations were contained in a harsh new book by President George W. Bush's former chief spokesman.
Despite refusing directly to "comment on a book that I haven't read," Rice told reporters that Bush was "very clear about the reasons for going to war," linking it to Saddam Hussein's flouting UN disarmament resolutions.
