Security forces stormed the provincial council building in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on March 29 after an hours-long shootout with gunmen that left 41 dead and 95 wounded. The gunmen, wearing military uniforms and suicide vests, swarmed into the council building immediately after a suicide bomber detonated his payload and cleared the way. A car bomb exploded shortly afterwards as police reinforcements were arriving. Those who did not die as a result of explosions were murdered, execution-style, by the gunmen, authorities said. A curfew was imposed in Tikrit, capital of the Sunni-majority Salaheddin province, which has long been a bastion of the insurgency.
In mid-January, a suicide bomber blew himself up and killed 50 people in a crowd waiting outside a police recruitment center in Tikrit. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the new attack, but officials said it bore the hallmark of Iraq’s al-Qaeda affiliate. (The Independent, March 31; Middle East Online, March 29)
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Baghdad: suicide attack targets Green Zone
Two suicide car bombings killed five people and wounded 15 on April 18 at the entrance to Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone, where an Arab League summit is to be held next month. A queue of cars was waiting to enter the Green Zone when the vehicles exploded, a security official said, pointing to “clear al-Qaeda fingerprints.” (Middle East Online, April 18)
Iraq: 27 killed in Diwaniya blast
At least 27 people, many of them police, were killed and more than 30 wounded June 21 when a bomb exploded near the home of the provincial governor in the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniya. Gov. Salam Hussein Alwan and his family were uninjured, police said. The blast ripped through the area around his compound in the capital of the normally calm Qadisiya province. The bombing was followed by a secondary blast when the fuel tank of a police car blew up. (LAT, June 22)
Iraq: Taji bombings kill dozens
A car packed with explosives and a roadside bomb went off back-to-back outside a municipal building in Taji, a Sunni town north of Baghdad on July 5, killing 37 people and wounding 54. (AP, July 5)