Car Bombs Kill 22 In Iraq

Filed at 8:24 a.m. ET

A car bomb exploded in heavy traffic in Baghdads central al-Khulani square today.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two suicide car bombs killed at least 22 people in northern Iraq on Tuesday in attacks targeting a police chief and a Sunni Arab tribal leader working with U.S. forces to fight al Qaeda.

"Look at this. Is this acceptable? Does God accept this?" said a youth holding torn, blood-splattered pages of the Koran outside a mosque hit by one of the blasts in the town of Baiji.

The police chief was wounded and the condition of the tribal leader was unclear, officials said.

In Baghdad, three car bombs and two roadside bombs on Tuesday also killed at least 11 people and wounded 58, police said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has vowed to target government officials and tribal leaders who have joined with the U.S. military to combat the Sunni Islamist group, pledging to ramp up attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The two suicide car bombs hit Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of the capital in Salahuddin province. Baiji is a major oil refining centre fed with crude oil and gas from the vast fields under the nearby city of Kirkuk.

Outside the mosque men searched through mounds of bricks for survivors. Two mechanical diggers shifted rubble and a crane hoisted huge concrete blocks into the air. Several houses next to the mosque were flattened.

"We were standing beside the mosque waiting for sunrise. We saw a blue minibus approaching," the imam of Baijis Abdullah al-Nami mosque told Reuters Television. "One of those killed told me earlier that he wanted to lead prayers tomorrow."

Police said the other bomb was in a pick-up truck aimed at Baijis police chief, Colonel Saad Nifous, who was wounded in the blast. Police and the U.S. military both said the bomb by the mosque had targeted a Sunni Arab tribal leader.

Police did not immediately have a breakdown of the 22 dead from the two separate attacks.

"Without question this is al Qaeda in Iraq. It is a known tactic and we have seen this time and time again," said Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Donnelly, spokesman for U.S. troops in northern Iraq.

AWAKENING COUNCILS

There was confusion about which tribal leader was targeted but both people mentioned by different police sources were senior members of Sunni Arab "Awakening" councils in the area.

The councils are based on a model first used in western Anbar province, where Sunni Arab sheikhs joined with U.S. forces to drive al Qaeda militants from much of the vast desert region.

Anbar was once the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency and the most dangerous region for U.S. troops. It has become safer since tribal leaders organized young men into police units.

U.S. President George W. Bush has lauded improved security in Anbar as an example of what could happen elsewhere in Iraq.

The U.S. military has said the Awakening councils are taking root in other provinces such as Salahuddin, where many Sunni Arabs have remained fiercely loyal to former president Saddam Hussein.

"The reconciliation and Awakenings are gaining momentum and al Qaeda in Iraq sees this a serious threat," Donnelly said.

The head of Baiji hospital, Thamir Kawan, said they had received nine bodies and 25 wounded from the two explosions, but he could not give a definitive toll as other casualties were being taken by U.S. forces to their military hospital.

In other attacks in the north on Tuesday, the deputy police chief of Nineveh province was killed by gunmen in Mosul. The head of police intelligence in Kirkuk was wounded in a drive-by shooting, police sources said.

The military blames al Qaeda in Iraq for most mass-casualty attacks in the country. The group also often claims responsibility for killing officials and tribal leaders.

Washington and U.S. commanders have said a security crackdown involving 30,000 extra U.S. troops helped bring down U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths in September, but they say there is still too much violence in Iraq.

The crackdown is designed to buy time for Iraqs feuding leaders to pass laws aimed at reconciling majority Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs, who were dominant under Saddam.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami and Dean Yates)

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