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Suicide Bombers Hit U.S.-Backed Group

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Los Angeles Times

Published: January 8, 2008

BAGHDAD - The suicide bomber walked straight to the Sunni Arab leader of a group battling al-Qaida in Iraq, shook his target's hand and detonated the explosives wrapped around his body.

Minutes later, as survivors were being moved to safety, witnesses said a second suicide attacker drove into the north Baghdad compound and set off his explosives.

The apparently coordinated attack killed at least 14 people, including Col. Riyadh al-Samarrai, commander of the Azamiyah neighborhood's citizen security group, police and government officials said Monday.

The U.S. military denounced the attack on the American-backed neighborhood group, blaming al-Qaida in Iraq for finding "new depths of depravity" to fight those who reject its ideology.

By evening, eight bombs in all had exploded in Baghdad neighborhoods east of the Tigris River, killing at least 18 people and injuring more than three dozen. Some officials put the death toll as high as 25 and the injury count at more than 50.

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