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Suicide bombing kills 32 at funeral in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-05 08:45 It was impossible to confirm the accuracy of the numbers because many
slayings in Iraq go unreported and there are no other official figures with
which to compare them. The United States military does not track civilian
deaths.
While Islamic extremist groups were suspected in the funeral attack, an
Internet posting in the name of the Islamic Army in Iraq, a nationalist group,
claimed responsibility for the ambush of the tanker convoy.
The claim was posted on an Internet site commonly used by militant groups and
could not be independently verified.
The Islamic Army in Iraq is one of the most active terror groups in the
country. It believed to include former Baathists and loyalists to Saddam
Hussein, along with Sunni Salafist Islamic extremists and former Palestinian
militants who lived in Iraq under Saddam's rule.
Nobody was injured in the attack on the drivers, which came three days after
the reopening of the Beiji refinery, Iraq's largest. The refinery north of the
capital had been closed since Dec. 18 because of attacks on drivers, leading to
hourslong lines at gas stations in Baghdad.
Iraqi police retrieve personal articles from
victims of a roadside bomb, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2006, in Kirkuk, Iraq.
[AP] | Meanwhile, roadblocks went up across
Baghdad as police searched for Interior Minister Bayan Jabr's sister, who was
kidnapped Tuesday. Gunmen killed one of her bodyguards and seriously wounded
another in the abduction.
The pan-Arab Al-Jazeera network said a previously unknown group called the
al-Tha'r Battalion, Arabic for revenge, claimed responsibility for the
abduction. It demanded the release of all women detainees, a stop to all raids
by the Interior Ministry, and decreased fuel prices.
In other violence:
- A car bomb exploded near an outdoor market in Baghdad's southern Dora
district, killing seven people and wounding 15, police said.
- Another car bomb in northern Baghdad killed three civilians and a
policeman, and wounded 13, said Maj. Mosa Abdelkareem.
- A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of
Baghdad, hit a civilian car instead, killing three passengers, said police Col.
Polla Mohammed.
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