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BAGHDAD - Iraq will shut its borders with Iran and Syria for 72 hours and extend the hours of a nightly curfew in Baghdad as part of a US- backed plan to rein in unrelenting violence, an official said today.
The new measures were announced during another day of violence in the Iraqi capital in which a suicide bomber blew up a lorry rigged with explosives near a Baghdad college, killing 18 people just a day after bomb blasts ripped apart two crowded city markets.
The border closure moves are the clearest sign yet from the government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that a crackdown against militants who are tearing Iraq apart was picking up.
The official in charge of the security plan, Lieutenant- General Abboud Qanbar, who announced the moves on Iraqiya state television, gave no timeframe. But a government official said an announcement would be made when the frontiers had been closed.
Qanbar gave no reason for the measures, but American and Iraqi officials have accused Syria of not doing enough to stop alleged foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq.
On Sunday, senior US military officials in Baghdad presented what they called growing evidence of Iranian weapons being used to kill their soldiers and implicated the "highest levels" of Iran's government in the training of Iraqi militants.
Weapons from Iran are also being smuggled across the border into Iraq, they said.
The suicide bomber detonated his small lorry in a parking lot between the College of Economic Sciences, a private university in western Baghdad's residential Iskan district, and a large foodstuff warehouse belonging to the Trade Ministry.
The blast in the mainly Shi'ite area set cars ablaze and destroyed a nearby home.
The attack, which also wounded 40 people, followed devastating bombings at two markets on Monday that killed at least 77 people and maimed scores.
Vehicle curfew extended
Qanbar said a nightly vehicle curfew in Baghdad would be extended from 8.00 p.m. until 6 a.m. local time. It now runs from 11.00 p.m. until 6.a.m. He did not say what would happen to violators.
The government would also force people illegally living in homes belonging to residents who had fled sectarian violence to leave, Qanbar said.
Baghdad's international airport, which has been closed down in security operations in the past, would not be affected.
US military officials say the Baghdad crackdown is in its early stages and that "fully-fledged" sweeps of neighbourhoods to hunt for militants and illegal weapons have not yet begun.
President George W. Bush has said he is sending more than 17,000 more troops to Baghdad for the push, which is seen as a last chance to avert all-out civil war between the country's majority Shi'ites and minority Sunnis.
Previous attempts to halt bombings and death squad killings in the capital have failed.
Critics say it is too little, too late, and war-weary Iraqis, exhausted by four years of war, question whether it can end the conflict between the country's now deeply divided Islamic sects. Bush is also facing criticism at home from Americans who oppose sending more troops.
- REUTERS
