Insurgents kill 24 in wave of Baghdad attacks

BAGHDAD - Insurgents have killed at least 24 people in a wave of ambushes and bomb blasts in Baghdad, the latest attacks in a surge of violence that has greeted the formation of a new Iraqi cabinet.

In the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber strapped with explosives blew himself up at an army recruitment centre at a former airfield in western Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding 15.

Suicide bombers have repeatedly targeted crowds of Iraqis queuing up to join the security forces.

Gunmen also ambushed a police convoy, shooting dead 10 policemen and then setting their vehicles ablaze, police said.

And a car bomb was detonated as the deputy interior minister's convoy drove past, killing one of his bodyguards and wounding six people, police said. The official was unhurt.

Over the past week guerrillas have stepped up their campaign of violence, defying predictions the insurgency would crumble following Jan. 30 elections and the formation of a new cabinet.

Iraq's al Qaeda wing, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed all three Baghdad attacks in a posting on an Islamist website late on Thursday.

"A lion from the martyrs' brigade launched a heroic attack on a recruitment centre of the depraved supporters of the Jews and Christians," the statement from al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq said.

Its authenticity could not be verified.

On Wednesday, a suicide bomber killed as many as 60 people in an attack on a Kurdish political party office and police recruitment centre in the northern town of Arbil, and a car bomb in southern Baghdad killed nine Iraqi soldiers.

Iraq's new cabinet was formally sworn in on Tuesday, a move Iraqi and US officials hoped would improve stability.

But squabbling among competing factions had caused a three-month delay in installing the cabinet after the January polls -- a hiatus exploited by the insurgents.

Although a cabinet is finally in place, five portfolios have yet to be filled, including the defence and oil ministries, as rival political blocs continue to bicker.

Government officials said decisions had been taken on who would take the oil, electricity and human rights ministries, and the full cabinet line-up would be announced as early as Friday once a defence minister was agreed upon.

In a decision likely to stir new controversy over the US military justice system, the 1st Marine Division said no charges would be filed against a Marine who shot three wounded and unarmed Iraqi prisoners in a mosque in Falluja during a major American military offensive there last November.

One of the shootings was filmed by an NBC journalist. The footage shows an Iraqi prisoner slumped on the floor of the mosque. After yelling that the man was faking death, the Marine shoots him in the head.

But the 1st Marine Division said the Marine was acting in self-defence as troops had been warned that some insurgents were feigning death or injury and then attacking.

The ruling follows another controversial US military investigation that exonerated American soldiers who killed an Italian secret service agent at a Baghdad checkpoint in March.

After a joint investigation by US and Italian officials, the US military said its soldiers had followed the correct rules of engagement and fired on the Italian vehicle only when it ignored instructions to stop.

But Italy refused to endorse the report, and blamed nervous US soldiers and a badly executed roadblock for the incident.

"The absence of criminal intent does not at all exclude responsibility because of negligence," Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told parliament on Thursday. But he added that Italy would not withdraw its forces from Iraq.

"The friendship between Italy and the United States has overcome more difficult problems than this," he said.

But another US ally, Bulgaria, is moving ahead with plans to end its unpopular troop deployment in Iraq. On Thursday, parliament approved a government plan to cut troop numbers in Iraq by next month and withdraw the country's 450-strong unit completely by the end of the year.

Several countries that initially provided troops to Iraq have withdrawn their forces over the past two years.

- REUTERS