At least four killed in Iraq car bombing (Roundup)

Oct 26, 2009, 15:18 GMT

Baghdad - At least four people were killed and five were injured in a new car bombing in central Iraq Monday, as the death toll from Sunday's twin bombings in Baghdad continued to climb.

Police told the German Press Agency dpa that three policemen died, and five others were injured, when a man detonated explosives packed into his car as he approached a police checkpoint 10 kilometres north of the central Iraqi city Karbala on Monday afternoon. The bomber was also killed in the explosion.

The attack on the predominantly Shiite Muslim city came as rescue workers continued to discover bodies as they sifted through the rubble left by twin truck bombings outside the Ministry of Justice in Baghdad the previous day.

Those bombings were the worst to hit Iraq since 2007.

Medics and policemen told dpa they had discovered the bodies of 153 people as of late Monday afternoon, and that more than 500 people, mostly employees of the ministry, were being treated for injuries in hospitals around central Baghdad after the blasts.

They said they expected to find still more bodies as they continued to search the rubble for survivors.

Sunday's attack was the most deadly to strike Iraq since 2007 and the worst since a coordinated series of blasts killed more than 100 people outside the foreign and finance ministries in central Baghdad in August.

On Monday, as after the August bombings, Iraqi politicians blamed Iraq's security services and neighbouring countries for the attacks.

'Our neighbouring countries should immediately stop providing sanctuary and financial support to terrorists,' Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said.

Talabani did not name any specific neighbouring country, but the previous day Interior Minister Jihad al-Boulani said he believed Monday's attacks were connected with those in August.

After those attacks, Iraq and Syria each pulled their ambassadors to the other country after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed Syria for not doing enough to stop militants from infiltrating Iraq.

Syria quickly condemned Sunday's attacks.

'Syria stresses denunciation of such terrorist acts as contrary to all moral and human values, reiterating its firm attitude of rejection and condemnation of forms and sources of terrorism,' Damascus' official SANA news agency cited an unnamed Syrian Foreign Ministry source as saying Sunday.

The carnage in Baghdad once again put al-Maliki and the security services on the defensive, months before parliamentary elections scheduled for January.

'These blasts show a real defect in the performance of the security apparatuses, in all respects - including the planning, coordination and implementation,' Hadi al-Ameri, the head of the Iraqi parliament's Security and Defence Committee, told Baghdad's al- Mashriq newspaper.

Al-Ameri called for the replacement of the top officials responsible for Baghdad's security.

Qassim Atta, the head of security for Baghdad, meanwhile vowed to conduct a thorough investigation into the bombings.

'Everyone responsible will be charged for the shortcomings,' he told reporters.

Sunday's attacks came at a particularly delicate time for the country and its prime minister, who has campaigned as the man who brought order to Iraq after the worst of the sectarian violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of the country.

Days after August's bombings, al-Maliki's main Shiite coalition partners left the prime minister's tent, prompting him to announce a new coalition of more than 40 political parties, including many local Sunni leaders, on October 1.

The coming parliamentary elections have been at the forefront of Iraqi political life in recent weeks.

Iraq's national security council, a body comprised of the country's top political leaders from across the political and sectarian spectrum, met to try to strike a compromise on voting in the disputed northern city of Kirkuk in the coming elections.

The council is discussing the matter after Iraqi lawmakers last week failed to agree on an electoral law to cover parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in January.

Kirkuk, which many Iraqi Kurds hope to make the capital of a future independent state but which Iraqi Arab and Turkman politicians view as integral part of the country, did not vote in January's provincial council elections after lawmakers failed to agree on a formula for conducting the vote there.