BAGHDAD — Al-Qaidain-Iraq claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings against its former insurgent allies that killed almost 50 people and said in an Internet statement posted Friday that it hoped the attacks would inspire others to “martyrdom.”
Al-Qaida’s ability to operate in Iraq has been sharply curtailed over the past couple of years because of a security crackdown, but attacks such as last Sunday’s bombings have shown it remains able to strike back.
In its Internet statement, al-Qaida said Sunday’s bombings were part of a series of attacks against its turncoat allies, former Sunni insurgents who are now members of progovernment militias known as Awakening Councils.
It described its targets as “leaders of apostasy and the hypocritical Awakening.” One of the attacks, it said, targeted the Sunni fighters as they “rushed to get the crumbs for which they have sold their religion.”
The fighters were waiting at a Baghdad military checkpoint to collect their government paychecks when the bomber struck, killing 40. Al-Qaida put the number of dead and wounded at 120.
It said the other attack by one of its “lions” was at anAwakening Council headquarters in the western city of Qaim, a former insurgent stronghold near the Syrian border. It claimed that bombing killed or wounded 20.
The official toll of the Qaim attack was three dead and six wounded. Iraqi officials said the bomber stormed the building and opened fire. The Sunni fighters returned fire and wounded the attacker, who blew himself up as the men gathered around him.
The statement, which appeared on a website where militant claims are often posted, said the group hoped God would “accept [the bombers’] martyrdom ... and make their blood a reason for others to hold on to the path of jihad and martyrdom.”
The attacks, while sharply diminished in scale and toll from the height of the insurgency in 2007, remain a threat.
On Thursday, a rocket attack on Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone killed three foreign security contractors, two Ugandans and a Peruvian, working for the Herndon, Va.-based Triple Canopy, which provides security for U.S. government installations in Baghdad. No one has claimed responsibility for that attack.
Politicians are still struggling to form a new government, four months after inconclusive March 7 elections. The political tug-of-war, and ensuing vacuum, have heightened concerns that insurgents will step up their attacks as the U.S. reduces its combattroop presence to 50,000 by the end of August.
In other developments Friday, Kurdish officials in northern Iraq announced that they had ordered the arrest of three people after a July 16 hotel fire that killed 28 people in the city of Sulaimaniyah. Half of the victims were foreigners working in the oil-rich region.
Officials had said the lack of a fire escape and other safety violations contributed to the high death toll.
Elsewhere in northern Iraq, the son of a senior police officer in Kirkuk was killed in a car bombing that targeted his father.
Information for this article was contributed by Yahya Barzanji and Sarah El Deeb of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 07/24/2010