'Al Qaida increasingly well-educated and Iraqi'
Source: Gulf news
Group claims responsibility for Baghdad hotel bombings
- Christian Science Monitor
- Published: 00:01 January 28, 2010
- Soldiers inspect the site of a bomb blast at Iraq's forensics headquarters in central Baghdad on Tuesday. Eighteen people were killed in the attack.
- Image Credit: EPA
Baghdad: An Al Qaida front group in Iraq claimed on Wednesday it carried out the deadly bombings against Baghdad hotels earlier this week, boasting its suicide car bombers were able to breach extensive Iraqi security.Meanwhile, gunmen in a speeding car in Baghdad opened fire on two buses carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing an Iranian woman and an Iraqi driver, the Baghdad security command said.
The attack on a main road in northwestern Baghdad also wounded five Iranian pilgrims, according to a statement from the agency read to Reuters over the phone.The top US general in Iraq said that leaders of Al Qaida in Iraq (AQI) appear to be increasingly well-educated and increasingly Iraqi.General Raymond Odierno added that, since August, AQI had transformed itself from a group dedicated to sustaining a long-term insurgency to one that was conducting terrorist attacks aimed at destabilising the government and weakening support for security forces.AQI has taken credit for a series of bombings starting in August that targeted key government institutions.FraudAt security checkpoints — including those in Baghdad — the government has relied heavily on an explosive detection device manufactured by a British company that is being investigated for fraud. Last week, the British government stopped the export of the hand-held devices, which the US military has determined to be "totally ineffective".The Iraqi government is believed to have paid more than $18,000 (Dh66,000) for each of the devices under an $850 million contract. A BBC investigative report on January 22 said they were manufactured for about $250 each, using the same sensors found in antishoplifting devices.The case has sparked the Iraqi government's own investigation as well as anger among Iraqis. That anger was evident in the streets surrounding the attack on Tuesday, where the blast tore through apartment buildings.Basim Mohammad Esmail, a Ministry of Interior employee, says he was having breakfast with his family when the blast tore through his apartment."It was just one second but it caused so much destruction and pain," he said, picking up a piece of metal that came flying through the window."My 8-year-old daughter is in hospital. Her beautiful face is full of glass splinters — she might lose her eyesight." He said he believed everyone in the government knew the explosives detection devices were ineffective and bought them anyway to make money from them."The security agencies are a failure. The explosives detectors are a failure," says Raed Eisam, whose niece and nephew were also injured by flying glass. "[The Iraqi government] knows that but they are too busy stealing. They don't care what happens to us, as long as they are safe in their secure Green Zone."On Monday, car bombs struck at three high-profile hotels in central Baghdad, one of them used by foreign journalists. Casualty estimates varied widely but at least 16 people appeared to have been killed.Odierno said the explosives detonated on Monday were much less powerful than those seen in previous bombings, but at least one of the audacious attacks marked a change in tactics.Gunmen outside the Hamra Hotel, popular with Western journalists, opened fire on the compound's security guards before a suicide truck bomb drove through the barrier and detonated.
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