BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – Two suicide bombers wearing vests full of explosives blew themselves up in separate attacks yesterday, killing 76 people, including many Iranian pilgrims, in what appeared to be Iraq’s bloodiest day in over a year.
Shortly after the two attacks, the authorities in Baghdad said they had arrested the purported leader of an al Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. The identity of the man detained was being verified, officials said.
The blasts occurred as apprehension grows in Iraq ahead of a pullout by U.S. troops from city centres in June, a move that officials say insurgents may try to take advantage of.
A year-end election also threatens to stir a resurgence in violence just as the sectarian bloodshed and insurgency triggered by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion appeared to be receding.
One of the attacks occurred near Muqdadiya, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, in the volatile province of Diyala. The suicide bomber targeted a group of Iranian pilgrims in a crowded roadside restaurant at lunchtime.
All but two of the 48 dead were Iranian pilgrims, who have flocked to Iraq in the millions since the fall of Sunni Arab dictator Saddam Hussein to visit Shi’ite Muslim religious sites. Seventy-seven people were wounded, police said.
It was the single deadliest attack since 50 people were killed by a suicide bomber in a restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk on Dec. 11 last year.
“Words can’t express it. It is a dirty, cowardly terrorist act,” said Abdulnasir al-Muntasirbillah, who marked his first day in office as Diyala governor yesterday.
The other blast took place in central Baghdad as a group of Iraqi national police were distributing relief supplies to families driven from their homes at the height of the violence.
Twenty-eight people died, and 50 were wounded, police said. At least five children and two Red Crescent workers were among the dead. Some witnesses said the bomber was a woman.
Red Crescent food parcels, police helmets and packets of biscuits were strewn in the blood pooled on the pavement, while a woman in a black robe wailed and beat her thighs in anguish.
“It is a suicide bomber. Obviously that has the fingerprints of al Qaeda,” said Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawi.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said al Qaeda was trying to trigger broader conflict by targeting the most vulnerable.
“They don’t differentiate between people. Their ideology is killing,” Dabbagh told the U.S.-funded al-Hurra TV station.
Violence in Iraq has fallen sharply over the past year, but insurgents such as Sunni Islamist al Qaeda still carry out attacks.
Yet, while the bombings remain routine, it has been a while since so many people were killed on a single day.
Last June 17, a truck bomb in Baghdad killed 63, two bombs on March 6, 2008, killed 68, also in Baghdad, and female suicide bombers killed 99 in a Baghdad pet market on Feb. 1, 2008.
