Car Bomb Kills 47 Would-Be Iraqi Soldiers

Attack comes day after explosion kills 55

February 11, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A suicide car bomber Wednesday killed 47 people, most of them Iraqi men standing in line to join the new Iraqi army, Iraqi medical officials said.

It is the second straight day suspected insurgents attacked where people were applying for jobs with the Iraqi security services. On Tuesday, a deadly truck bombing killed 55 people near a police station south of Baghdad as Iraqi applicants lined up outside.

Wednesday's blast happened in front of the Iraqi Army Recruiting Center in central Baghdad, U.S. Army Col. Ralph Baker said. A man drove a white 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera packed with explosives weighing between 300 and 500 pounds that shredded everything in its path, Baker said.

A spokesman for the Iraqi Governing Council said the insurgents are trying to "destabilize" the country, but said the attacks won't deter the country's move toward sovereignty.

"These acts of cowardice will not succeed," Hamid al-Kifaee said Wednesday. They "are a sign of desperation by the terrorist groups."

One military source said the amount of explosives was similar to the one detonated at the so-called Assassin's Gate last month, where Iraqis lined up to enter the coalition's secured "Green Zone" in Baghdad.
Not long after the explosion, the U.S. military handed out a leaflet offering rewards for information that leads to the capture of insurgents and their weaponry.
General: Tuesday's blast has al Qaeda 'fingerpints'

Tuesday's blast in Iskandariyah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, wounded more than 150 people, an Interior Ministry source said.

The truck bomb bore al Qaeda "fingerprints," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the Army spokesman in Baghdad.

Kimmitt gave somewhat lower casualty figures, saying at least 35 people were killed and 75 wounded. The U.S. military command said its figures could be low since Iraqi authorities are handling the investigation, according to The Associated Press.

The bomb detonated in a red pickup truck that had belonged to Saddam Hussein's former intelligence service, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The blast destroyed part of a street that also has a courthouse and an office that distributes national identity cards in the mixed Sunni-Shiite town, the Iraqi official said.

Kimmitt said that while no group had claimed responsibility, the estimated 500 pounds of explosives in the vehicle had some "fingerprints" of the foreign fighter operations referred to in a seized memo purported to be from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Kimmitt said the purported al-Zarqawi memo raises concern about the growth of Iraqi security forces, but that "the current strategy that we are implementing is in fact working."

He said despite "almost daily" attacks, recruiting police officers hasn't stopped.

This week, the U.S. military released parts of a letter found with an al Qaeda courier last month, calling it a "blueprint for terror." They said they think the letter was intended for al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan and is an insurgent's call for help fighting the U.S.-led coalition and the Iraqis who work with it.

Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor said the memo was shown Tuesday to members of the Iraq Governing Council.

Officials said Wednesday that releasing details of the memo will heighten opposition to the insurgency.

"When everybody in Iraq has read the document, they'll fully understand what the terrorists are up to," Kimmitt said. Along with Shiites, the letter identifies three other basic enemies in Iraq -- Kurds, Iraqis who work with the coalition and Americans.

Coalition and Iraqi forces are bracing for more violence from anti-U.S. guerrillas as the country heads toward independence July 1.

In two other attacks Tuesday, two pairs of Iraqi police officers were shot as they drove to work in Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said.

CNN's Jane Arraf contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/02/11/sprj.nirq.main/index.html