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A burnt motorbike is seen on the back of a police pick-up truck at the site of a bomb attack in Baghdad - Source: Reuters -
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A bomb killed at least 13 people and wounded 45 when it exploded
in an industrial area of Baghdad, just four days before US combat
troops are due to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns.
Police said the bomb was planted on a motorbike in a market
specialising in motorcycles in Bab al-Sheikh, a largely Shiite
Muslim part of central Baghdad.
Shredded shoes and bits of bloody clothing were scattered around
the twisted frames of motorbikes.
A spate of bombings in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq has raised
doubts about whether the Iraqi security forces can take over the
fight against a stubborn insurgency when US troops withdraw to
their bases at the end of this month.
Iraqi police and army have had to be completely rebuilt since US
administrators disbanded the Iraqi forces after the US invasion in
2003, a fatal decision that left thousands of trained fighters
unemployed and angry, fuelling an insurgency.
Despite proud assertions from the government that the US pullback
represents a victory for Iraq as it regains its sovereignty, many
Iraqis lack faith in their own forces.
On Wednesday, 78 people were killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad's
Sadr City neighbourhood; just days after a truck bomb killed 73
people in the northern city of Kirkuk.
Such attacks have prompted angry responses from Iraqis who blame
local security forces for failing to protect them.
Iraqi officials say the attacks are aimed at reigniting the
sectarian warfare that raged for years between Iraq's once dominant
Sunni Muslims and majority Shiites, who have gained supremacy since
the fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
Violence is a far cry from what it was during the height of
sectarian killing in 2006-2007, but Iraq's untested forces and
fractious political class still face major security
challenges.
US and Iraqi officials have warned they expect the number of
attacks to rise as US combat troops leave urban centres this
month.
Analysts say violence is also likely to spike in the run-up to a
parliamentary election next January.
The US withdrawal from urban combat posts by June 30 is a milestone
in the plan to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq in August 2010
and pull out all US soldiers by 2012.
More than six years after Saddam Hussein was ousted, and as the
Obama administration looks increasingly towards the war in
Afghanistan, the United States still has about 130,000 troops in
Iraq.
