Iraq arrests security officials over Baghdad blast

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD – Iraq announced the arrests of dozens of military and security personnel on Thursday over Baghdad suicide bombings that killed 155 people, trying to calm public outrage at the government's apparent inability to protect its people ahead of January elections and the pending U.S. troop withdrawal.

Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a military spokesman for the Iraqi capital, told The Associated Press that 11 army officers and 50 security officials have been taken into custody over Sunday's bombings — the worst attacks in Iraq in over two years.

The massive blasts at the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad Provincial Administration angered many Iraqis, who questioned how the suicide bombers could have gotten their explosives-laden vehicles through a downtown dotted with checkpoints and security personnel.

While other suspects have been detained, al-Moussawi said these were the first arrests of security officials in relation to the Sunday bombings. The military commander and the police chief of Baghdad's Salhiya district, where the powerful blast occurred on Sunday, were among those arrested, al-Moussawi said.

Al-Moussawi said the suspects were arrested because they were responsible for protecting the area where the bombings occurred. He said the investigation will determine whether they were negligent or actually helping the insurgents.

"If the investigation results show that other security officials were also negligent or helped the insurgents, we will arrest them," he said.

News of the arrests comes as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is sending a senior U.N. official to Baghdad in response to a request from Iraq's prime minister for an investigation into an earlier, similar suicide bombing of two government ministries. Those attacks, in August, killed more than 100 people.

Ban said that Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Oscar Fernandez-Taranco will go to Baghdad "for preliminary consultations related to Iraq's security and sovereignty" and discussions on how the United Nations can help. The U.N. leader said he decided to send the envoy to Baghdad before Sunday's bombings.

Iraq has blamed an alliance between al-Qaida in Iraq and Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party for the pair of truck bombings on Aug. 19 outside the Foreign and Finance ministries in Baghdad.

Al-Qaida's umbrella group in Iraq claimed responsibility for the August attack and for Sunday's bombings, raising fears Iraq will return to violence that raged across the country in 2006 and 2007.

Fear of more turmoil has been fueled by the continued inability of Iraq's lawmakers to agree on an election law, throwing into doubt the country's ability to pull off the upcoming parliamentary elections on time.

On Thursday, Kurdish lawmakers pushing for control of the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk boycotted a parliament session that was to tackle the crucial law needed for January's nationwide balloting.

The election law has been held up over whether to use voter lists that favor the Kurds or the Arabs in the city of Kirkuk, which is claimed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen.

The city's Arab and Turkmen ethnic groups resent what they perceive as Kurdish efforts to take over Kirkuk, which Kurds see as historically theirs and describe as their "Jerusalem."

Next to Sunni-Shiite tensions in Iraq, the issue of Kirkuk and Kurdish-Arab disputes has become a key flashpoint in this fragile nation. A political deadlock now could delay the elections and open the way for new violence and instability.