BAGHDAD, July 18, (Agencies): Two suicide bombings killed 48 people in Iraq on Sunday, including dozens from a government-backed, anti-al-Qaeda militia lining up to collect their paychecks near a military base southwest of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.
The bombings were the deadliest in a series of attacks across Iraq Sunday aimed at the Sons of Iraq, Sunni groups also known as Awakening Councils that work with government forces to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The attacks highlighted the stiff challenges the country faces as the US scales back its forces in Iraq, leaving their Iraqi counterparts in charge of security.
The first attack Sunday morning — the worst against Iraq’s security forces this year — killed at least 45 people and wounded more than 40. It occurred at a checkpoint near a military base where the Awakening Council members had lined up to collect their paychecks in the mostly Sunni district of Radwaniya southwest of Baghdad.
“There were more than 150 people sitting on the ground when the explosion took place. I ran, thinking that I was a dead man,” said Uday Khamis, 24, who was sitting outside the Mahmoudiyah hospital where many of the wounded were taken. His left hand was bandaged and his clothes were stained with blood.
At least a dozen men, dressed in military-style uniforms were seen laying in pools of blood in front of a blast wall in footage taken by the Associated Press Television shortly after the blast.
There were conflicting reports as to how many of the dead were Iraqi soldiers and whether any of the civilian accountants handing out money were among them.
A military official at the base said the explosion was the work of one suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Some of the injured complained about the lack of protection from the Iraqi military when they would go to collect their paychecks. Khamis said the men used to be searched but this time they were allowed to line up without any checks being conducted.
Another man who was waiting at the hospital with his wounded nephew said this was the fifth day they had gone to the base to try and collect their paychecks.
“Every time they went to receive their salary, they told them to come back the next day and they did that for four days and now in the fifth day this explosion took place,” said Hassan Ali.
The area was immediately sealed off, and Iraqi helicopters could be seen flying over the site.
In the second attack, a suspected militant stormed a local Awakening Council headquarters in the far western town Qaim, near the Syrian border, and opened fire on those inside.
The fighters returned fire, wounding the attacker, who then blew himself up as they gathered around him, killing three and wounding six others, police officials said on condition of anonymity.
While violence has dropped dramatically over the past two years in Iraq, security forces remain a favorite target for insurgents bent on destabilizing the country and its Shiite-led government.
The Awakening Councils have played a key role in reducing violence in Iraq since they first turned against their former al-Qaeda allies in late 2006, joining the US military and government forces in the fight against the terror group.
But their future role in the Shiite-majority country is contentious. The US used to pay the monthly salaries of about $300 for the nearly 100,000-strong militias. Last year, the Iraqi government took over paying their salaries and, after heavy pressure from the Americans, agreed to absorb up to 20 percent of the fighters into its security forces, with others getting government jobs.
Meanwhile, former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and several other members of Saddam Hussein’s regime appeared in court Sunday just days after their handover from the US to Iraqi custody, an Iraqi official said.
Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim said Aziz and the other members of the deposed regime were summoned to appear in front of the court dealing with crimes from the Saddam era.
The court charged Aziz with squandering the public wealth and will face a new trial, his lawyer Badee Izzat Aref said.
Aziz, who was the international face of Saddam’s regime for several years, has twice before been convicted by the Iraqi High Tribunal and has received prison sentences of 15 years and 7 years in prison.
The US had turned over 55 former regime figures over the last year, including Aziz earlier this week, according to Iraqi officials.
Drawdown
In another development, the United States remains on track for its drawdown in troops from Iraq by August despite the political stalemate in Baghdad, US Vice-President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
“There is a transition government. There is a government in place that’s working,” Biden told ABC’s “This Week” when asked if the US administration can meet its commitment to end its combat mission in August
“Iraqi security is being provided by the Iraqis, with our assistance. We’re going to have — still have 50,000 troops there. We will have brought home 95,000. There is no one in the military who thinks there’s any reason we can’t do that.”
Biden acknowledged the difficulties among Iraqi parties in reaching a power-sharing agreement but said this would not affect the US drawdown.
“I don’t have a doubt in my mind that we’ll be able to meet the commitment of having only 50,000 troops there and it will not in any way affect the physical stability of Iraq,” he said.
Iraqi political parties “are in negotiations right now to figure out how to allocate the power within that government,” he said.
“In other words, share power. And it is about just that. And it’s underway. And it’s going to happen. There will be a central government with control of its foreign policy, with control of the military.”
Biden’s comments came days after Washington urged Iraqis on all sides to make greater efforts to overcome differences and end a four-month stalemate in forming a government.
Iraqi politicians last Monday extended an inaugural parliamentary session by two weeks to give rival blocs more time to form a government, more than four months after the elections.
The parliament, the second democratically elected chamber since the 2003 fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, met briefly for the first time on June 14 after the March 7 general election.
In early July, Biden traveled to Iraq to urge politicians to put aside personal ambitions and form a government representative of all Iraqis.