At least 80 people were injured in the blast, according to an
The blast added to unease about security in the
capital after a series of explosions Monday that targeted three hotels
favored by Western journalists, foreigners and government officials.
Thirty-six people died in the explosions.
Tuesday’s bombing took place near a checkpoint on al
in the Karrada neighborhood. At least five of those killed and half of
those wounded were police officers injured when part of the building
collapsed, said the
The explosion also sent glass and pieces of metal
flying through nearby cafes. It was the third time in two years that
the directorate had been bombed, he said.
The top U.S. general in
Army Gen.
had transformed itself from an organization dedicated to sustaining a
long-term insurgency to one that was conducting clear-cut terrorist
attacks aimed at destabilizing the government and weakening support for
Iraqi security forces.
bombings starting in August that targeted key government institutions —
among them the Foreign, Justice, and Finance ministries — with huge
suicide bombs.
The bombings also fueled anger over a widening scandal involving British-made explosive detection device that’s widely used at
Last week, the British government stopped the export
of the hand-held devices, which the U.S. military has determined to be
“totally ineffective” and said the company that makes the devices was
being investigated for fraud.
The Iraqi government is thought to have paid more than
Iraqis whose homes were torn by Tuesday’s blast voiced frustration at the government.
“How can such explosives move about the city,” said
employee who was having breakfast with his family when the blast tore
through his apartment. “They can because the detectors they are using
are worthless. The government knows they are useless and the officials
in the
Picking up a piece of metal that had come flying
through the window, he talked about the personal price of the bombing.
“My 8-year-old daughter is in the hospital — her beautiful face is full
of glass splinters — she might lose her eyesight,” he said.
“It was just one second but it caused so much destruction and pain.”
“The security agencies are a failure. The explosives detectors are a failure,” said
whose niece and nephew also were injured by flying glass. “(The Iraqi
government) knows that but they are too busy stealing. They don’t care
what happens to us, as long as they are safe in their secure
Odierno said the explosives detonated on Monday were
much less powerful than those seen in previous high-profile bombings,
but at least one of the audacious attacks marked a change in tactics.
Gunmen outside the
popular with Western journalists, opened fire on the compound’s
security guards before the suicide truck bomb drove through the barrier
and detonated. Sixteen people were killed by the Hamra blast.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen it executed this
way,” Odierno said. “As time goes on, their ability to impact becomes
less and less, so they are trying to get the biggest outcome.”
While the U.S. and
had made great progress, they shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty of
dealing with a sophisticated and constantly shifting organization, he
said.
“This is a slog. This is not something that changes
immediately overnight — it takes time to develop capacity, to develop
investigative capacity, it takes time to develop the relationship
between the judiciary and the Iraqi police regarding evidence,” he said.
Odierno said he thought that most of the suicide car bombs were being assembled in rural areas outside
Those areas — known as the
belt — were the focus of the U.S. military surge three years ago when
thousands of American troops were placed in the area to prevent the
flow of ammunition and fighters into the capital. In many of the areas
there were not enough effective Iraqi security forces to replace them
when the Americans pulled out.
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(c) 2010, The Christian Science Monitor and McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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