Suicide blasts kill 33 ahead of Iraq polls

The blasts, the deadliest to hit the country in nearly a month, also wounded 55 people and spurred security forces to issue a curfew.

BAQUBA, March 3, 2010 (AFP) - Three suicide bombings, including one carried out by an attacker who rode in an ambulance to hospital before blowing himself up, killed 33 people in central Iraq on Wednesday, just days before nationwide elections.

The blasts, the deadliest to hit the country in nearly a month, also wounded 55 people and spurred security forces to clamp an immediate curfew on the city, 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Baghdad.

At least 10 policemen were among the dead, a security official said.

The attacks came despite heightened security across the country ahead of Sunday's vote and after the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, threatened to disrupt the election by "military means".

Two near-simultaneous suicide vehicle bombs ripped through the provincial housing department's offices and a nearby traffic intersection at around 9:30 am (0630 GMT), the security official from Baquba operations command said.

A bomber dressed in police uniform then rode with wounded victims in an ambulance to the hospital where he blew himself up, according to Major Ghaleb al-Juburi, Baquba police spokesman.

"The suicide bomber tried to blow himself up against the police chief when he came to see the wounded in the hospital," the security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

Police chief Major General Abdul Hussein al-Shimmari escaped unharmed but members of his personal security team, including police Colonel Nabil Ibrahim, were wounded. Diyala provincial health chief Dr. Ali al-Timimi was also injured.

"Just a few minutes after we began receiving victims, the police chief arrived," said policeman Hassan Timimi, who was in the hospital when it was bombed and suffered injuries to one of his legs.

"We were surprised by a new attack, something went off.

"I was carrying a wounded person, trying to take him to the emergency room, but the bomb went off in the main gate of the emergency room and I was knocked unconscious."

An advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Ali al-Mussawi, blamed the attacks on "terrorists" bent on disrupting Sunday's vote.

"They want to cause confusion and stop the people from voting because the elections are a big threat to terrorists," he told AFP.

"They have put all their efforts into jeopardising the elections."

The first vehicle in Wednesday's attacks crashed through the entrance to the provincial housing department's compound, which sits next to a police station, before exploding.

Moments later at a nearby traffic intersection, a suicide bomber triggered the explosives packed into his vehicle, creating a powerful blast.

"I was going to the market, passing through the intersection," Ali Ehsan Ibrahim, who suffered head injuries in the attacks, told AFP from the hospital.

"Before I reached it, I saw an explosion near the police station and after that, traffic was jammed and people tried to flee.

"The second attack happened near me -- I did not feel anything and I ended up in the hospital."

US and Iraqi security forces have cordoned off the hospital, an AFP journalist at the scene said.

Wednesday's attack was the deadliest to hit the country since February 5, when 41 Shiite pilgrims were killed on the last day of a religious mourning ceremony on the outskirts of the holy city of Karbala.

Baquba, capital of Diyala province, was a hotbed of Sunni insurgents in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion.

Iraqis vote Sunday in legislative elections, the second such election since Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003.

The country's National Security Advisor Safa Hussein told AFP on Sunday that of the groups seeking to strike in the election period, "AQI attacks are the most direct and serious security threat."

AQI leader Baghdadi last month condemned the elections as a political crime plotted by Shiites, according to US-based SITE, which monitors Islamist websites.

"(We) have decided to prevent the elections by all legitimate means possible, primarily by military means," SITE quoted him as saying in a statement posted on an Islamist website.

The election is seen by Washington as a crucial precursor to a complete US military withdrawal by the end of 2011.