Sunni extremists appear to have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers and other Interior Ministry officials throughout Iraq, with at least 10 attacks in 48 hours.
Among the dead was the police chief of Baqouba in Diyala province. There were assassination attempts on two other police chiefs, which left one of them in critical condition. About 30 police officers have been injured during the attacks, according to local security offices.
“There is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials, and particularly Interior Ministry officials,” said Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister for information and national investigations.
“It seems that the terrorists’ plan has already started, and this explains the incidents that happened recently in Kut, Diyala, Kirkuk and Mosul,” he said.
In the last two days, attackers have struck across the country. In addition to the four areas mentioned by Kamal, local security forces reported attacks against police in Samarra, Basra and Fallujah.
The attack campaign was announced on an Islamist Web site Sept. 15, two days after the killing of a Sunni leader of the tribal Awakening Council, which has begun to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq, the homegrown extremist group whose leadership has foreign ties, according to American intelligence officials.
The Sunni extremists said they would begin a series of attacks to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Several of the attackers were suicide bombers driving cars or wearing suicide vests. The most lethal attack occurred Monday in Diyala when a man wearing a suicide vest walked into a reconciliation meeting at a Shiite mosque in Shifta, a suburb of the provincial capital, and detonated his vest as several hundred people were drinking tea after breaking the traditional daylong Ramadan fast, according to a U.S. military report.
The police chief of Baqouba, Brig. Ali Dlyan, was killed along with 11 other officers, two of whom were commanders. The number of dead rose Tuesday, but there was uncertainty about that number, with the American military saying 24 died and 37 were wounded. Diyala health officials reported 18 dead and 27 wounded.
The governor of Diyala province, who was injured in the attack, was saved by his bodyguards, who threw themselves on him as the bomber neared. All five bodyguards died.
In Diyala on Tuesday, the bodies of three policemen were found. In Basra, a suicide car bomber attacked police headquarters during morning check-in, killing three people, including a policeman, and injuring 17 officers.
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In the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday afternoon, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt attacked Col. Abid Hamid, the police chief of Abu Tamam, an area of Mosul, while he was visiting one of the district’s fuel stations, said Brig. Said al-Jbouri, the police media officer for Nineveh province. The police chief reportedly was in critical condition.
In Kirkuk on Monday, a roadside bomb detonated near the convoy of Maj. Gen. Jamal Taher, the city’s police chief. It failed to kill him, but wounded one of his bodyguards.
In Samarra on Monday, a local citizens group that had gathered at the mayor’s house to organize opposition to Al Qaeda was attacked by gunmen. Four people were badly injured.
Mayors in Iraq traditionally are employees of the Interior Ministry, although that has begun to change.