Another Iraq suicide bomb, Bush blames foreigners

11.45am

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber killed himself and at least four others in Iraq on Tuesday, as foreign aid workers agonised over whether to quit the country in the aftermath of Monday's 35-death bloodbath in Baghdad.

Another American soldier was confirmed killed and six other troops wounded in a Baghdad rocket attack as President George W Bush blamed the violence in postwar Iraq on members of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath party and "foreign terrorists".

A New Zealand soldier and two others were wounded in Basra when the vehicle came under attack.

Bush, seeking re-election next year amid criticism in some quarters of his Iraq policies, said he expected Syria and Iran to enforce border controls to stop infiltrators.

The latest suicide bombing near a police post in Falluja, west of Baghdad, followed Monday's carnage in the capital in which 35 people died in near-simultaneous attacks on the Red Cross headquarters and three stations of the US-backed police.

With the latest soldier's death, announced on Tuesday, the US military casualty toll from hostile fire rose to 114 since Bush declared major combat over on May 1, just one less than the total killed in combat during six weeks of war itself.

Baghdad deputy mayor Faris al-Assam was killed in a drive-by shooting on Sunday, the US-led authorities said on Tuesday.

Just over a week ago, a tape recording attributed to al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden demanded the United States leave Iraq and vowed more suicide attacks on Americans the world over. Iran's ambassador to France Seid Mohammad Sadegh Kharrazi blamed al Qaeda and remnants of Saddam's regime for the attacks.

But he told a Paris news conference that Washington had only itself to blame for the bloodshed. The Americans, be it in Afghanistan or Iraq, had provoked the development of terrorist movements and terrorist acts in the region, he said.

The bombing of the Baghdad headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) caused deep concern among aid and international agencies operating in Iraq.

But the World Bank envoy to Iraq, Tanwir Ali Agha, told Reuters on Tuesday that poor security should not be allowed to stall reconstruction -- since unless Iraqis saw an improvement in their lives the violence would only get worse:

"It's a vicious circle...If you don't start reconstruction because you set the same security standards for Iraq as for other countries, then you won't get started. If you don't get started, the circle of violence will get even more vicious."

In Moscow, Russia resumed efforts to revive multi-billion dollar oil deals, on hold since the US invasion, by urging new Iraqi Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum to visit Moscow.

ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani said it was weighing its response to the mayhem but would not leave Iraq after 23 years of continuous work through three wars. A spokeswoman at ICRC headquarters in Geneva said the review of its presence in Iraq would focus on Baghdad, because other regions were safer.

Other humanitarian agencies were also trying to balance the urge to pursue their mission against the dangers of doing so.

"Definitely some of our people will be leaving Iraq," Marc Joolens, operations coordinator for medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, told Reuters. "It's a difficult decision because there are needs, but there are also great risks."

Tuesday's suicide bomber blew up his small car outside a school 100 metres from a police station in Falluja, in the "Sunni Triangle" where resistance to occupation is stiffest.

US soldiers sealed off the area after the blast, which set cars ablaze and scattered body parts across the street.

In the northern city of Mosul, newspaper editor Ahmed Shawkat, who had written articles criticising radical Islamists, was shot dead at his home.

Monday's bombings, in which a US soldier died, followed the killing of three US troops on Sunday night and the death of another hours earlier when rockets hit a Baghdad hotel where US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying.

A soldier died and six were wounded in a rocket attack on Monday in Baghdad, the army said on Tuesday.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq