A US general today said Iraqi insurgents used children in a suicide attack this weekend, raising worries that the insurgency has adopted a new tactic to get through security checkpoints with bombs.
Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, said adults in a vehicle with two children in the backseat were allowed through a Baghdad checkpoint on Sunday.
The adults then parked next to a market in the Adamiya area of Baghdad, abandoned the vehicle and detonated it with the children still inside, according to the general and another defense official.
"Children in the back seat, lower suspicion, we let it move through," Barbero said. "They parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back."
"The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn't changed," Barbero said.
The attack killed five, including the children, and wounded seven, the defense official said.
The general called it a new tactic, but noted US forces had only seen one such occurrence involving children.
The use of chemical bombings has increased and become a tool of the insurgency, as the three chlorine bombs detonated this past weekend brought the total to six such bombings since January, the general said.
"High-profile" suicide and car bomb attacks by Sunnis against Shi'ites also have not abated, Barbero said.
But he said increased force in Iraq's capital had yielded some success, such as a reduction in murders and executions of civilians. He also said hundreds of families have returned to Baghdad and the number of tips from Iraqi civilians about insurgent activity hit its highest mark ever in February.