WORLD> Middle East
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WORLD> Middle East
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Suicide blast kills 5 US soldiers, 2 Iraqi police
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-11 11:46 Friday's blast was the single deadliest attack on US troops in Iraq since March 10, 2008, when a suicide bomber struck American soldiers on a foot patrol in Baghdad. Five Americans were killed in that attack. More recently, four US soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter died Feb. 9 in a suicide bombing at a checkpoint in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with a population of about 2 million. The dead included a lieutenant colonel, one of only three battalion commanders killed in action in the six-year war.
But that success has not been replicated in Mosul, where repeated operations have failed to subdue al-Qaida and about a dozen other Sunni militant groups. Many insurgents are believed to have fled to northern Iraq after losing their sanctuaries in Baghdad and elsewhere. The US-Iraqi security agreement that took effect this year requires American combat troops to leave bases in cities by the end of June. President Barack Obama plans to remove all combat units by September 2010 and withdraw the rest of the US force by 2012. But the top US commander, Gen. Raymond Odierno, said this week that he worries Iraqi forces won't be ready to assume full responsibility for Mosul by the June deadline. Odierno told The Times of London in an interview published Thursday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faces a "very difficult" political decision whether to ask US troops to stay longer in Mosul. Mosul politicians themselves are divided over the issue. The majority Sunni Arabs generally oppose an extension while minority Kurds and their allies support it. A Sunni party won the provincial election in Mosul last January and is due to take office Sunday now that coalition talks are over. Atheel al-Nujaifi, who is expected to become governor of the province around Mosul, opposes keeping the Americans in the city. "There is no reason for US forces to stay beyond June because well-organized and well-disciplined Iraqi security forces are capable of securing the province," al-Nujaifi said Friday. "We will work to ensure this when we take over the provincial council." However, another prominent local politician, Hashim al-Hamadani, said "the situation in Mosul is grave" and "we need US forces after the June deadline." "Otherwise, violence will spread," he said. Also Friday, police in Diyala province said one person was killed and five were wounded when a bomb hidden on a bicycle exploded the night before during a wedding celebration about 45 miles northeast of Baghdad. Iraqi police in the southern city of Basra said Friday they arrested 65 people in overnight raids after an attack on a US convoy in the area and the kidnapping of two guards working for a local Iraqi security firm. The arrested included 20 people who were already on a wanted list and 45 others, mostly militiamen, said the city's police spokesman Col. Karim al-Zeidi. The US military said the American convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near Basra airport on Thursday but there were no casualties. Al-Zeidi said the two company employees were abducted late Thursday. He would not identify the company.
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