Iraq Watch: September 20, 2006

Bombers Target Security Forces

More than 65 Iraqis have been killed over the last 24 hours in attacks throughout the county in yet another bloody spasm of violence.

Over the same time span, at least 35 bodies have been discovered discarded in and around the capital city of Baghdad according to Reuters.

Coordinated strikes near an Iraqi military complex north of Baghdad left over 20 Iraqis dead and 50 wounded. Late Tuesday evening, a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army base in Sharqat. As on-lookers amassed at the scene of the explosion a suicide bomber detonated his explosives sending shrapnel tearing through the growing crowd.

Raad Hussein Hamdani, one of the injured, told the Washington Post: "A large fireball rose up, and I could see human parts flying up in all directions."

In the capital, meanwhile, a suicide bomber plowed a truck filled with explosives into an Iraqi police barracks in Baghdad's volatile southern Dora district. The bomber detonated his payload as Iraqi police were arriving at work. The mammoth blast, which leveled much of the building, killed at least seven and injured 14.

Elsewhere, a suicide car bomber blew up his car outside the home of a Sunni tribal leader in the city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. The blast claimed the lives of at least 10 civilians and wounded nearly 40 more. Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the targeted chieftain was purportedly an opponent of al-Qaida in Iraq.