country Wednesday, May 11, as insurgents reportedly killed scores of people and injured more than one hundred in a series of morning attacks. News reports said four car bombs and a man with explosives strapped to his body killed at least 61 people and wounded more than 100 in three cities Wednesday, May 11, as hundreds of American forces pushed through a lawless region near the Syrian frontier in an offensive aimed at insurgents.
In Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a suicide car bomb exploded in a small market near a police station, killing at least 27 people and wounding 75, police and hospital officials reportedly said. The blast apparently killed mainly civilians after guards prevented the bomber from driving into a police station.
In Hawija, 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Baghdad, a man with hidden explosives slipped past security guards protecting a police and army recruitment center and blew himself up just outside the building where some 150 applicants were lined up, The Associated Press (AP) news agency reported. At least 30 people were killed and 35 injured, police officials were quoted as saying.
MORE CAR BOMBS
Three more car bombs targeting a police station and patrols exploded in Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 14, police reportedly said. It came as the chief of operations for the US military, Lieutenant General James Conway, admitted that the US-forces trying to root out insurgents in the northwestern corner of Al-Anbar Province are engaged in a “significant battle” against a "willful and capable" insurgency.
In this offensive, code named Operation Matador, General Conway said the US military is finding some new developments among the insurgents. “There are reports that these people are in uniforms, in some cases are wearing protective vests, and there’s some suspicion that their training exceeds that of what we have seen with other engagements further east,” the Voice of America (VOA) network quoted him as saying.
It came as a major challenge for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who had hoped a multi ethnic and religious composition of his cabinet would help to ease tensions. Especially minority groups, including Christians, have suffered under several forms of violence and kidnappings, human rights groups say.
CHRISTIAN MINISTER
It was not clear if the cabinet appointment of 44-year old Christian woman Bassima Yousef Boutros had fuelled anger among the mainly Muslim insurgents. Boutros, a biochemist at Salah Eldin university in Erbil, was confirmed earlier this week as the country’s new science and technology minister.
She had reportedly been at the centre of a freedom movement for Iraq’s ChaldoAssyrians Christians, who human rights groups say were often persecuted under the country’s previous Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. The US believes insurgents are linked to both the former regime and several terrorist networks. (With reports from Iraq and BosNewsLife Research)
