Iraqi Checkpoints New Focus for Insurgents
BAGHDAD — Insurgents detonated bombs and threw grenades on Monday at four Iraqi police and Army checkpoints, the most visible deterrent the Iraqi government has to foil attacks.
The most deadly was a suicide truck bombing in the western city of Ramadi, which was once a power center for fighters loyal to the regime of Saddam Hussein.
There, a suicide bomber driving a truck laden with explosives was stopped at a police checkpoint just outside the city when he blew himself up, killing seven people and wounding a dozen more, and setting a half-dozen cars ablaze. At least four of those killed were policemen, and other victims included women and children, according to a local security official.
Security officials said the explosion would have caused more damage had the driver detonated in a more populous area.
“The attacks will continue,” said Major General Tariq al-Asal, the police commander in Anbar Province, the largely Sunni region where Ramadi is located. He noted the difficulty of stopping someone determined to blow themselves up. “But the number of victims is limited,” he said, “because the police are capable of foiling the attackers and preventing them from reaching their destination.”
Checkpoints, along with blast walls, have become an omnipresent feature of the Iraqi landscape. Hundreds of thousands of police and Army soldiers remain posted at roads inside cities, towns, and villages and also on the roadways that link those population centers.
They vary greatly in size and sophistication, ranging from a lone soldier sitting at a chair on a little traveled side street, a machine gun propped up by his knees, to dozens of security officers surrounded by blast wall, checking identification cards of motorists and waving cars off to the side of the road to be searched.
At the height of the sectarian killing, fake checkpoints became so common that Iraqis feared traveling from one neighborhood to another. But there have been few such incidents in the last year. As the Americans were preparing to withdraw from the cities this spring, Iraqis even began decorating the concrete barriers at their checkpoints with plastic flowers.
Following the devastating bombings last month in the heart of Baghdad, the Iraqi government said that vigilance at all the countries checkpoints would be stepped up.
For those seeking to undermine the Iraqi government, attacking checkpoints is a natural way to undermine public confidence. However, the attacks at checkpoints could also indicate a frustration at being able to penetrate attack more populated areas, Iraqi officials said.
In Baghdad, there were at least three separate attacks on police and army checkpoints on Monday, killing at least one civilian and wounding more than 20 others, according to Iraqi security official.
Unlike the attack in Ramadi, two of the attacks in Baghdad used unwitting civilians to strike the checkpoints, according the Iraqi security officials. In the first attack in Sadr City, they attached what is known a “sticky bomb” to the bottom of an unsuspecting civilian, according to Iraqi security officials, and detonated it once it stopped at the checkpoint. Five people were wounded, including two members of the Iraqi Army, according to Iraqi officials. Residents in the area said at least on civilian was killed, but that could not be confirmed.
In a later attack across the city Monday afternoon, the same tactic of placing a sticky bomb on a civilian car was used to attack a checkpoint, killing one civilian and wounding eight others, including two policemen.
Separately, in Baghdad on Monday an insurgent lobbed a grenade at an Iraqi Army checkpoint, wounding six people, including two soldiers.
In the more restive areas in Mosul and Diyala province, both believed to be strongholds of insurgents looking to challenge the current Iraqi government, there were also attacks, as there have been nearly every day this month.
For instance, in Diyala, eight people have been killed and 34 wounded in attacks over the last seven days alone.
Reporting was contributed by Abeer Mohammed and Mohammed Hussein from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Ramadi and Diyala Province.
BAGHDAD — Insurgents detonated bombs and threw grenades on Monday at four Iraqi police and Army checkpoints, the most visible deterrent the Iraqi government has to foil attacks.
The most deadly was a suicide truck bombing in the western city of Ramadi, which was once a power center for fighters loyal to the regime of Saddam Hussein.
There, a suicide bomber driving a truck laden with explosives was stopped at a police checkpoint just outside the city when he blew himself up, killing seven people and wounding a dozen more, and setting a half-dozen cars ablaze. At least four of those killed were policemen, and other victims included women and children, according to a local security official.
Security officials said the explosion would have caused more damage had the driver detonated in a more populous area.
“The attacks will continue,” said Major General Tariq al-Asal, the police commander in Anbar Province, the largely Sunni region where Ramadi is located. He noted the difficulty of stopping someone determined to blow themselves up. “But the number of victims is limited,” he said, “because the police are capable of foiling the attackers and preventing them from reaching their destination.”
Checkpoints, along with blast walls, have become an omnipresent feature of the Iraqi landscape. Hundreds of thousands of police and Army soldiers remain posted at roads inside cities, towns, and villages and also on the roadways that link those population centers.
They vary greatly in size and sophistication, ranging from a lone soldier sitting at a chair on a little traveled side street, a machine gun propped up by his knees, to dozens of security officers surrounded by blast wall, checking identification cards of motorists and waving cars off to the side of the road to be searched.
At the height of the sectarian killing, fake checkpoints became so common that Iraqis feared traveling from one neighborhood to another. But there have been few such incidents in the last year. As the Americans were preparing to withdraw from the cities this spring, Iraqis even began decorating the concrete barriers at their checkpoints with plastic flowers.
Following the devastating bombings last month in the heart of Baghdad, the Iraqi government said that vigilance at all the countries checkpoints would be stepped up.
For those seeking to undermine the Iraqi government, attacking checkpoints is a natural way to undermine public confidence. However, the attacks at checkpoints could also indicate a frustration at being able to penetrate attack more populated areas, Iraqi officials said.
In Baghdad, there were at least three separate attacks on police and army checkpoints on Monday, killing at least one civilian and wounding more than 20 others, according to Iraqi security official.
Unlike the attack in Ramadi, two of the attacks in Baghdad used unwitting civilians to strike the checkpoints, according the Iraqi security officials. In the first attack in Sadr City, they attached what is known a “sticky bomb” to the bottom of an unsuspecting civilian, according to Iraqi security officials, and detonated it once it stopped at the checkpoint. Five people were wounded, including two members of the Iraqi Army, according to Iraqi officials. Residents in the area said at least on civilian was killed, but that could not be confirmed.
In a later attack across the city Monday afternoon, the same tactic of placing a sticky bomb on a civilian car was used to attack a checkpoint, killing one civilian and wounding eight others, including two policemen.
Separately, in Baghdad on Monday an insurgent lobbed a grenade at an Iraqi Army checkpoint, wounding six people, including two soldiers.
In the more restive areas in Mosul and Diyala province, both believed to be strongholds of insurgents looking to challenge the current Iraqi government, there were also attacks, as there have been nearly every day this month.
For instance, in Diyala, eight people have been killed and 34 wounded in attacks over the last seven days alone.
Reporting was contributed by Abeer Mohammed and Mohammed Hussein from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Ramadi and Diyala Province.
Source: New York Times
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