42 Slain in Iraq Bombings

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The New York Sun

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Bombers killed 42 people yesterday at a Baghdad restaurant favored by police and an army recruiting center to the north, while Iraqi troops along the Iranian border found 27 decomposing bodies, unidentified victims of the grisly violence plaguing the country.


A suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant about 9:45 a.m., when officers usually stop in for breakfast. Police Major Falah al-Mohammedawi said 35 officers and civilians died and 25 were wounded.


Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed in an Internet posting that it staged the attack in retaliation for American and Iraqi operations near the Syrian border.


Samiya Mohammed, who lives near the restaurant, said she rushed out when she heard the explosion.


“This is a criminal act that only targeted and hurt innocent people having their breakfast,” she said. There were no Americans in the area, she said.


The blast was the most deadly since a car bomb ripped through a market in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing at least 30 people on September 19.


Yesterday’s other big attack came in Tikrit, where a car bomb blew up in the middle of a group of men outside an Iraqi army recruiting center. Seven were killed and 13 wounded, police Captain Hakim al-Azawi said. The men were former officers during Saddam’s regime, he said.


Last week, Iraq’s defense minister invited officers of Saddam’s army up to the rank of major to enlist in the new Iraqi army. It was an overture to disaffected Sunni Arab ex-soldiers, many of whom joined the insurgency after the Americans abolished the Iraqi armed forces in 2003.


The bombings came just before Britain’s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, arrived in Baghdad for a meeting with Prime Minister al-Jaafari to discuss the December 15 parliamentary elections.


Separately, Iraqi soldiers found the decomposing bodies of 27 people near a town close to the border with Iran, Jassan, Colonel Ali Mahmoud said.


In western Iraq, American officials said Operation Steel Curtain was moving out of Husaybah to the village of Karabilah, a militant stronghold on the Syrian border. The 6-day-old operation aims to secure the area that American commanders believe is used to smuggle foreign fighters and weapons into Iraq.


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