Bombers killed around 40 people and wounded scores in several attacks in northern Iraq today, days after the government vowed to expand a crackdown against militants in a region where al Qaeda retains influence.
In the worst attacks, two suicide bombers killed 27 people and wounded 68 when they blew themselves up outside an army recruitment centre in Baquba, 65km northeast of Baghdad, an Iraqi security source said.
The US military said 20 recruits were killed and 55 wounded, saying the attackers blew themselves up in a line of men outside the centre.
Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda has sought to stoke tensions in Iraq's ethnically and religiously mixed northern cities, such as Diyala and Mosul, after military campaigns pushed its militants out of former strongholds in western Anbar province and Baghdad.
Iraqi security forces are poised to launch a major crackdown in Diyala, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday, the latest military operation aimed at stabilising the country.
The attack on the recruitment centre follows a string of bombings in Diyala province, of which Baquba is the capital.
Hours after those attacks, three bomb blasts hit the northern city of Mosul, capital of Nineveh province.
In the worst attack, a suicide car bomber killed eight people and wounded a policeman at a police checkpoint, the US military said. Police sources put the death toll at five.
The Interior Ministry has not given a date for the start of the Diyala crackdown but says US forces, which have been conducting operations there since January, will take part.
A witness described devastation in Baquba.
"An explosion shook everything. I saw chunks of flesh scattered everywhere and some recruits were calling for their friends," said wounded recruit Nadhim Hameed (19).
"There were people on the ground with blood stains on them -- it was chaos. Then another bomb exploded and I woke up here."
Television footage showed men and women weeping over bodies wrapped in white shrouds at a local hospital. Medical staff rushed around with stretchers to treat the wounded.
The Diyala crackdown will be the latest Iraqi-led offensive aimed at stamping government authority on areas once in the hands of Sunni Arab insurgents or Shi'ite militias.
Other operations have targeted Shi'ite militias in the southern provinces of Basra and Maysan.
Falls in violence are due to a US troop buildup, a rebellion by Sunni Arab tribal leaders against al Qaeda and a truce by anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
That has focused more attention on national reconciliation and a series of laws Washington hopes will bridge the divide between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.
In a blow for attempts to hold provincial elections in the next few months, parliament failed to approve a draft electoral law today because of disagreement over what to do about voting in the disputed oil rich city of Kirkuk, lawmakers said.
It was unclear when parliament would convene again to consider the draft, which has to be passed so the electoral commission can prepare for polls seen as vital to fostering national reconciliation.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said the elections would be held on October 1st, although parliamentarians have previously said that would be unlikely given many preparations for the vote could not be undertaken until the law was passed.
The elections are seen by Washington as a way to boost reconciliation by giving factions that boycotted the last polls in 2005, especially Sunni Arabs, a chance to claim a stake in the political process at the local level.
Reuters