Multiple Suicide Bomber Attempts End in Soldier Deaths near Baghdad

A suicide bomber drove a truck containing explosives into an Iraqi army checkpoint in Iskandariyah, a village south of Baghdad, according to the New York Times. His intended destination was an Iraqi army unit headquarters building. He was, however, shot by Iraqi soldiers before getting past the checkpoint, an act that potentially saved many lives.

Though he was stopped short, the blast was large enough to kill at least 12 Iraqi soldiers, wounding 30 more, and cause a sufficient amount of damage to surrounding buildings. The death toll is expected to rise, said an army official, once rescue teams searched through the wreckage.

This is not the only area to experience violence today. There have been incidents involving insurgency all throughout Iraq. Only hours earlier, there was a rocket strike on Camp Bucca, an area in south eastern Iraq that houses thousands of prisoners and insurgents. The attack killed six detainees. Officials are still unsure who is responsible, but are using intelligence systems to find out.

Northeast of Baghdad, American and Iraqi troops had a heated battle with insurgents, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. The troops were attacked by rocket-propelled grenades from inside a mosque. One American was shot and killed, and the fight eventually led to helicopters being called in to fire missiles at the insurgents operating inside. Shortly after, three suicide bombers attempted to blow up a government building in the same area, Baquba. All three were stopped and killed before reaching their destination, though one policeman was killed in the ensuing violence.

While attacks from insurgents came all throughout Iraq, the country experienced violence in the north from another source, Turkey. Turkish forces have been fighting with guerillas from the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or the PKK. They guerillas live in remote regions along the borders of Turkey and Iran, are classified as a terrorist organization, and have killed more than 500 people in Turkey last year alone. Turkish forces reportedly went into Iraq in pursuit of them, causing continued violence and unwanted artillery shelling in the region. According to The Times, this prompted the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to formally demand that Turkey stop the attacks, saying that the violence was "undermining trust" between the two countries and causing instability in the area. The ministry did emphasize that it would not tolerate P.K.K presence, considering it an illegal group and added that the Iraqi constitution states that Iraqi lands are not to be used as battlefields for such terrorists.

Source:

Oppel, Richard A. "Bomber Kills At Least 12 Iraqi Soldiers." NYTimes. 10 June 2007. 9 June 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/world/middleeast/09cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin