الرئيسية
File photo of Iraqi special security forces in Baghdad. A
suicide car bomber detonated an explosives-packed vehicle at a prison
north of Baghdad on Monday, killing 11 people and wounding at least 15,
security officials said.(AFP/File/Sabah Arar)
By Mohamad Ali Harissi, AFP
BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least 17 people were killed and more than
50 wounded, among them an Iraqi member of parliament, on Monday in a
wave of bloody attacks mainly in and around Baghdad, security officials
and an MP said.
In the deadliest attack, a suicide car bomber
detonated an explosives-packed vehicle near the main entrance of Hout
prison in Taji north of Baghdad at about 8:00 am (0500 GMT), as family
members gathered to visit inmates.
An interior ministry official
said 13 people were killed and 28 wounded by the blast, while a defence
ministry official put the toll at 12 dead and 26 wounded.
Justice
ministry spokesman Haidar al-Saadi said six of the dead in Taji were
police working under the ministry who were on their way to work at the
prison.
The bomber "blew himself up on the highway near the
prison, where family members of prisoners were gathering" before a
visit, Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said.
Later,
an Iraqi member of parliament was wounded and two other people killed
in an explosion, the cause of which was disputed, near parliament.
The blast was alternatively said to have been from a mortar shell, a suicide bomber, and a magnetic "sticky bomb."
"A mortar round landed near parliament's car park. One colleague, (MP) Muayid al-Tayyeb, was wounded," MP Ali al-Shila told AFP.
The
interior ministry official said that two people were killed and seven
wounded by a mortar round, while the defence ministry official said
three people were killed and four wounded by an explosion in a
parliament parking area, but that "it is not clear if it was a car bomb
or a mortar shell."
It was not clear if the MP was included in
the number of wounded given by the security officials. Differing tolls
are common in the confusion following attacks in Iraq.
"What
happened today was a suicide operation against members of parliament
while they were leaving parliament," a high-ranking security official
said on condition of anonymity.
That account was also backed by
Aidan Helmi, media adviser to Iraqi parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi,
who said that the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber and termed
it a botched "assassination attempt" on Nujaifi.
Helmi said a man
driving a black vehicle of the type that make up Nujaifi's convoy tried
to enter the VIP gate of parliament, backed up when asked for a badge,
hit another car, exited his vehicle, argued with the other driver, and
blew himself up.
The US military, when asked about the parliament
blast, said that "there was an MAIED (magnetically attached improvised
explosive device) near the northeast corner of the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier. It has not been characterised as a suicide attack."
The
interior ministry official also said that two people were killed and
four wounded by a magnetic "sticky bomb" on a vehicle in the Mansur area
in western Baghdad.
And one person was killed and 18 others
wounded by three roadside bombs in the disputed north Iraq city of
Kirkuk, Major General Turhan Abdul Rahman, the deputy director general
of Kirkuk police, said.
Monday's deaths raise the toll from a week of surging violence across Iraq to at least 61.
On
Sunday, bomb and gun attacks killed four people and wounded nine, while
the previous day 16 people were killed and 20 wounded in bombings and
shootings in Baghdad and Abu Ghraib, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) west
of the capital.
Three bombs exploded in the southern port city
of Basra last Thursday, killing 19 people, including high-ranking army
and police officers, and wounding at least 65.
And five people were killed in attacks in the disputed northern Iraq city of Kirkuk on November 22.
Violence
has declined nationwide since its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks
remain common. A total of 258 people were killed in October, according
to official figures.
General Lloyd Austin, the top US commander
in Iraq, has warned of "turbulence" on the security front as American
forces depart and militant groups seek to take advantage of the vacuum.
He specifically pointed to Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian-backed militias.
American
troops are set to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, bringing to a close an
almost nine-year war that has left thousands of American soldiers and
tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, and cost hundreds of billions of
dollars.
