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BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday held a war
council and warned of an imminent battle against al-Qaeda, a day
after two mentally impaired women bombers killed 98 people in
Baghdad.
The meeting in Mosul, the capital of northern
Nineveh province, was attended by military and political leaders,
including US Commander in Iraq General David Petraeus and Iraq’s
National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, the premier’s office
said.
“It is time to launch a decisive battle
against terrorism,” Maliki said, according to a statement.
“The battle that our armed forces will launch
will destroy terrorism and the criminal gangs and outlaws in
Nineveh.”
Maliki called on all Iraqis to support the
security forces “so we can get rid of terrorism and the remnants
of the former [Saddam Hussein] regime who use Nineveh because of its
geographical location as a base for criminal actions against the
people.”
On January 25, Maliki promised a “decisive
battle” against al-Qaeda after dozens of people including a police
chief were killed in bomb attacks in Mosul, the last urban bastion
of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In a statement earlier on Saturday, the prime
minister said Iraqi security forces “will continue to … crush
the terrorists and target their strongholds.”
His comments came as a US general accused al-Qaeda
of using the mentally impaired women as unwitting bombers in
Friday’s attacks on two Baghdad pet markets because they were less
likely to be searched.
Major General Jeffery Hammond, commander of US
forces in Baghdad, told a news conference that al-Qaeda in Iraq was
using “its twisted ideology to spread fear in the hearts of
people.”
He spoke as Iraqi security officials said the
toll from Friday’s twin bomb attacks had risen to 98 dead and 208
wounded, from 64 killed and 107 wounded reported on Friday.
They could not give a breakdown of the tolls
from the attacks which took place within 20 minutes of each
other—one in the popular Al-Ghazl pet market in central Baghdad
and the other in a pet market in the southeastern Al-Jadida
neighborhood.
The blasts were the deadliest in the capital
since August 1, when three car bombs killed more than 80 people.
Hammond said both bombers were women and closely
resembled each other, adding: “There are indications they were
mentally handicapped.”
“They were used by al-Qaeda because they were
less likely to know what was happening,” Hammond said. “They
were less likely to be searched.”
The woman used in the Al-Ghazl market bombing
had been carrying a backpack, while the other had arrived at the
Baghdad Al-Jadida market wearing a suicide vest, he said. He added
that it had not yet been determined whether they had triggered the
blasts themselves or the explosives had been remotely detonated.
General Abud Qanbar Hashim, Iraqi chief of
Baghdad Operations Command, accused al-Qaeda leaders during the
press conference of using mentally handicapped children and adults
to do their “dirty work.”
-- AFP
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