Suicide truck bomber kills 56 in northern Iraq
* 170 wounded, 50 homes destroyed
* Maliki says "don't lose heart" if attacks occur
* U.S. soldiers to leave urban centres by end of month
(Updates toll)
By Khalid al-Ansary
BAGHDAD, June 20 (Reuters) - A suicide truck bomber killed 56 people as they left a mosque on Saturday, after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki urged Iraqis not to lose faith if a U.S. military pull-back sparked more attacks.
Almost all U.S. soldiers will leave urban centres by June 30 under a bilateral security pact signed last year and the entire force that invaded the country in 2003 must be gone by 2012.
"Don't lose heart if a breach of security occurs here or there," Maliki told leaders from the ethnic Turkmen community, reiterating a warning that insurgents were likely to try to take advantage of the U.S. pull-back to launch more attacks.
Analysts warn there may also be a spike in violence by mainly Sunni Islamist insurgents, including al Qaeda, and other violent groups ahead of a parliamentary election next January.
Hours after Maliki spoke, a suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives as crowds of worshippers left a Shi'ite Muslim mosque near Kirkuk, a northern city contested by Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds that sits over vast oil reserves.
Fifty-six people died, including women and children, and 170 were wounded as dozens of clay homes in the area were flattened.
"I was sitting in my house when suddenly a powerful blast shook the ground under me," said Hussain Nashaat, 35, his head wrapped in white bandages. "I found myself covered in blood and ran outside in a daze. My lovely neighbourhood was just rubble."
There was chaos at Kirkuk's Azadi Hospital, where ambulance sirens wailed as workers rushed blood-splattered civilians into the wards.
Outside, security officials brandished assault rifles to stop traffic as pick-up trucks raced through the gates carrying more victims of the blast at the al-Rasul Mosque.
NEW TACTICS
Such attacks, including a string of devastating bomb blasts in April, cast doubt on the ability of Iraqi security forces to take over after U.S. troops leave. The bloodshed fell sharply in May and June has also seen fewer large-scale attacks.
It is not clear if that is due to the efforts of Iraqi police and soldiers or if it means insurgent groups, beaten back over the past two years in most of Iraq, now lack the organisation and support to keep up the momentum.
Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said al-Qaeda was resorting to paying people to fight for it, as well as recruiting some Shi'ites drawn by the cash. He said it had also turned to criminal activities to raise funds.
"Instead of recruiting people through faith or ideology, as it was in the past, now they are paying money to recruit people," Khalaf told reporters.
The sectarian bloodshed and insurgency unleashed by the invasion peaked in 2006/07, but ethnically mixed cities such as Mosul and Baquba remain dangerous. A suicide car bomber killed four policemen near Falluja in western Anbar province, once the heartland of the insurgency, on Saturday.
Baghdad has also continued to see a steady stream of bombings and shootings, and Kirkuk is viewed as a potential flashpoint for a broader conflict between Arabs and Kurds.
On Saturday, the U.S. military handed Iraqi forces control of a base in the capital's sprawling Sadr City slum, a hotbed of support for fiery anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and a major former battleground for U.S. forces.
From there rockets and mortar shells often rained on the fortified Green Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi officials are based.
"The land we stand on today has been bought at a very high price," said U.S Major General Daniel Bolger. "Fighting here was fierce and deadly. Thank God the worst of that has passed." (Additional reporting by Mustafa Mahmoud in Kirkuk; Waleed Ibrahim and Muhanad Mohammed in Baghdad; Writing by Michael Christie and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
* Maliki says "don't lose heart" if attacks occur
* U.S. soldiers to leave urban centres by end of month
(Updates toll)
By Khalid al-Ansary
BAGHDAD, June 20 (Reuters) - A suicide truck bomber killed 56 people as they left a mosque on Saturday, after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki urged Iraqis not to lose faith if a U.S. military pull-back sparked more attacks.
Almost all U.S. soldiers will leave urban centres by June 30 under a bilateral security pact signed last year and the entire force that invaded the country in 2003 must be gone by 2012.
"Don't lose heart if a breach of security occurs here or there," Maliki told leaders from the ethnic Turkmen community, reiterating a warning that insurgents were likely to try to take advantage of the U.S. pull-back to launch more attacks.
Analysts warn there may also be a spike in violence by mainly Sunni Islamist insurgents, including al Qaeda, and other violent groups ahead of a parliamentary election next January.
Hours after Maliki spoke, a suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives as crowds of worshippers left a Shi'ite Muslim mosque near Kirkuk, a northern city contested by Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds that sits over vast oil reserves.
Fifty-six people died, including women and children, and 170 were wounded as dozens of clay homes in the area were flattened.
"I was sitting in my house when suddenly a powerful blast shook the ground under me," said Hussain Nashaat, 35, his head wrapped in white bandages. "I found myself covered in blood and ran outside in a daze. My lovely neighbourhood was just rubble."
There was chaos at Kirkuk's Azadi Hospital, where ambulance sirens wailed as workers rushed blood-splattered civilians into the wards.
Outside, security officials brandished assault rifles to stop traffic as pick-up trucks raced through the gates carrying more victims of the blast at the al-Rasul Mosque.
NEW TACTICS
Such attacks, including a string of devastating bomb blasts in April, cast doubt on the ability of Iraqi security forces to take over after U.S. troops leave. The bloodshed fell sharply in May and June has also seen fewer large-scale attacks.
It is not clear if that is due to the efforts of Iraqi police and soldiers or if it means insurgent groups, beaten back over the past two years in most of Iraq, now lack the organisation and support to keep up the momentum.
Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said al-Qaeda was resorting to paying people to fight for it, as well as recruiting some Shi'ites drawn by the cash. He said it had also turned to criminal activities to raise funds.
"Instead of recruiting people through faith or ideology, as it was in the past, now they are paying money to recruit people," Khalaf told reporters.
The sectarian bloodshed and insurgency unleashed by the invasion peaked in 2006/07, but ethnically mixed cities such as Mosul and Baquba remain dangerous. A suicide car bomber killed four policemen near Falluja in western Anbar province, once the heartland of the insurgency, on Saturday.
Baghdad has also continued to see a steady stream of bombings and shootings, and Kirkuk is viewed as a potential flashpoint for a broader conflict between Arabs and Kurds.
On Saturday, the U.S. military handed Iraqi forces control of a base in the capital's sprawling Sadr City slum, a hotbed of support for fiery anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and a major former battleground for U.S. forces.
From there rockets and mortar shells often rained on the fortified Green Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi officials are based.
"The land we stand on today has been bought at a very high price," said U.S Major General Daniel Bolger. "Fighting here was fierce and deadly. Thank God the worst of that has passed." (Additional reporting by Mustafa Mahmoud in Kirkuk; Waleed Ibrahim and Muhanad Mohammed in Baghdad; Writing by Michael Christie and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved.
Woods home after car crash