Iraq car bombings up 30 percent: U.S. general

By Kristin Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. general on Friday said suicide attacks and car bombings soared 30 percent since the start of a security crackdown in Iraq last month, and that insurgents had used a child in a second suicide attack last week.

Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, also characterized the rising use of chlorine bombs in Iraq as "poison gas attacks."

"Chlorine is a poison gas. It is a poison gas being used on the Iraqi people. Before these attacks, the last time poison gas was used on the Iraqi people was by Saddam Hussein," Barbero told reporters at the Pentagon.

According to the general, a teenage boy was used in a suicide bombing in Haditha on March 21.

Barbero said Iraqi police were pursuing a suspicious vehicle. As the police drove past a 12- to 14-year-old boy on a bicycle, a bomb in the teenager's backpack detonated, killing him instantly, he said.

That came three days after insurgents in Baghdad detonated a car bomb with children in the backseat, Barbero said.

"These acts -- the use of poison gas and the use of children as weapons -- are unacceptable in any civilized society and demonstrate the truly dishonorable nature of this enemy," he said.

Violence throughout Iraq surged over the past week, killing 300 people. The past week was the bloodiest since the start of the U.S.-backed security crackdown in Baghdad in mid-February.