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Police Chief of Embattled Province Is Killed in Iraq
Suicide Attacks and Bombings Leave More Than 30 Dead in Iraq
(about 5 hours later)
BAGHDAD — The police chief of the embattled province of Anbar in western Iraq was killed Sunday morning in the explosion of two roadside bombs, officials said, in a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi security forces to wrest full control of the province back from the jihadist insurgency called the Islamic State.
BAGHDAD — Three suicide bombers attacked a government center in Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad, on Sunday, killing 30 people and wounding more than 140, officials said.
Later in the day, three suicide bombers attacked a security compound in the Qara Taba district in Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad, killing 30 and wounding 140 people, according to police officials. The first bomber set off his explosives at the compound’s gates, and then minutes later two other attackers drove their cars into the compound and detonated their explosives.
Many of the victims were people who had sought refuge in the district, Qara Taba, after violence had forced them to flee their homes elsewhere in the country, officials said. They had gathered at the government center to collect subsidies for displaced people.
The dead and wounded included people displaced by the violence who had gathered at the compound to receive government subsidies, officials said.
Earlier in the day, the police chief of the embattled province of Anbar in western Iraq was killed when two bombs planted along a rural road were detonated as his convoy drove by, officials said. Anbar officials said the death of the chief, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Saddag, was a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi security forces to wrest full control of the province from the jihadist insurgency called the Islamic State.
The police chief, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Saddag, was traveling in a convoy that included his personal security detail when the bombs were detonated, said a staff member for a senior Anbar provincial council member.
The Iraqi security forces have been struggling to push back the Islamic State fighters from territory they have captured this year. The insurgent group, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL, first made inroads in Iraq at the beginning of the year when its fighters swept from Syria into Anbar Province and quickly seized control of cities and territory throughout the Euphrates River valley, from the Syrian border to the rural western suburbs of the Baghdad metropolitan area.
Three of General Saddag’s bodyguards were also killed in the attack, said the staff member, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
In June, another wave of fighters poured across the Syrian border into northern Iraq, quickly overwhelming Iraqi security forces in the city of Mosul. They have since expanded their control across areas of northern and central Iraq.
The Iraqi authorities have been battling the Islamic State in Anbar since the insurgency swept from Syria into the province at the beginning of the year and quickly seized control of cities and territory throughout the Euphrates River Valley, from the Syrian border to the rural western suburbs of the Baghdad metropolitan area.
Sunday’s three-pronged attack in Qara Taba, northeast of Baquba near the Iranian border, targeted the mayor’s office, a building used by the internal security service of the Kurdistan regional government and an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the main Kurdish political parties, according to Rudaw, a Kurdish news agency.
The attack came a day after a rash of bombings in several districts around greater Baghdad killed more than 50 people and wounded nearly 100, unnerving the capital on what, for many, was the final day of a weeklong holiday.
The first of the three bombers set off his explosives at the compound’s gates.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a crowded market on Saturday in Mishahda, in the rural northern outskirts of the capital, killing 14 people and wounding 27, said police officials and an employee at a hospital, all of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
He was quickly followed by two other attackers driving cars loaded with explosives, which were detonated at the compound’s entrance, officials said.
Three more bombings occurred in quick succession around nightfall. A suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives detonated his payload at a police checkpoint in Khadamiya, a predominantly Shiite middle-class neighborhood in northern Baghdad, killing 12 people, including four police officers, and wounding 20, officials said.
Qara Taba is close to Jalawla, where Islamic State fighters have been battling Iraqi security forces and Kurdish fighters, known as the pesh merga. Among the dead were 15 pesh merga veterans, Rudaw reported, adding that the attacks were also close to the pesh merga’s veterans affairs bureau.
Around the same time, a car packed with explosives blew up next to a marketplace in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shula in northwestern Baghdad, killing eight and wounding 24, officials said.
The attack that killed General Saddag in Anbar occurred in the town of Albu Risha, west of Ramadi, the provincial capital. Three of General Saddag’s bodyguards were also killed in the attack, said a staff member of a provincial council member, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
After the Shula bombing, the authorities blocked off the road leading to the scene, causing traffic to back up, and cars were rerouted. The final attack occurred when a suicide bomber drove his vehicle into the traffic congestion and set off his explosives, killing 17 people and wounding 28, officials said.
“His death is a great tragedy,” said Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, a leader of the Albu Risha tribe in Anbar Province. “He was a lion.”
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Islamic State, which has taken control of vast regions of the country, often uses suicide bombers and car bombs, usually targeting majority-Shiite neighborhoods. Saturday was the end of a holiday week that began with the celebration of Eid al-Adha, the Islamic Feast of Sacrifice.
Elsewhere in Iraq, fighters for the Islamic State killed four brothers, including an Iraqi cameraman for a local television station in Salahuddin Province, which is predominantly Sunni, officials and local tribal leaders said Saturday. The journalist, Raad al-Azzawi, and his brothers were shot in the head on Friday in a village near Tikrit while their mother was forced to watch, the officials said.
Mr. Azzawi was kidnapped on Sept. 7 by the insurgents, who said they planned to decapitate him because he refused to work for them, according to Reporters Without Borders, a watchdog group based in Paris.
