Suicide bomber kills 37 at crowded Iraq checkpoint

HILLA, Iraq — A suicide bomber killed 37 people, including two state television employees, at a checkpoint near Baghdad Sunday, after Iraq’s premier accused Riyadh and Doha of fuelling bloodshed in the country.

Iraq has been hit by a year-long surge in violence that has reached levels not seen since 2008, driven principally by widespread discontent among its Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

Analysts and diplomats have urged the Shiite-led authorities to reach out to disaffected Sunnis, but with elections due next month, political leaders have not wanted to be seen compromising and have instead pursued a hard line against militants.

The suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged minibus during morning rush hour at a checkpoint at the northern entrance to Hilla, the confessionally mixed but mostly Shiite capital of Babil province south of Baghdad.

The attack killed 37 people and wounded 166, a police lieutenant and a doctor at Hilla hospital said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Among the fatalities were five policemen, two women and five children, they said.

“I saw a huge fire that covered the entire checkpoint and many cars nearby,” Salam Ali, who suffered wounds to his chest and a hand, said from his Hilla hospital bed.

“Many victims could not get out of their cars because the pressure of the explosion fused the doors shut.”

Another witness, 18-year-old Kadhim Abdulhussein, said he saw pieces of metal from the checkpoint scattered dozens of metres from the scene of the attack.

Iraqiya state television said two of its employees, Muthanna Abdulhussein and Khaled Abed Thamer, were among the dead.

Militants carry out frequent attacks on security forces, and also target areas where crowds gather. The checkpoint combined the two.

Just north of Hilla, a gun attack on a police checkpoint left two policemen dead and four others wounded.

In Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, gunmen shot dead at least two soldiers and wounded one at an army checkpoint, while six attacks north of the capital killed three policemen and two soldiers and wounded nearly 40.

PM blames Saudi Arabia, Qatar 

In an interview broadcast on Saturday, Maliki accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of backing militant groups in Iraq, saying they have effectively declared war on the country.

The two Sunni Gulf states “are attacking Iraq, through Syria and in a direct way, and they announced war on Iraq, just as they announced on Syria, and unfortunately it is on a sectarian and political basis,” the premier told France 24 television.

“These two countries are primarily responsible for the sectarian and terrorist and security crisis of Iraq.”

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have emerged as regional rivals.

The two countries support fighters opposed to embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, and in recent weeks they have sparred over Doha’s backing for the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.

Baghdad has long complained of support for militant groups fighting in Syria’s civil war finding its way through to Iraq, with weapons in particular ending up in jihadist hands.

In the interview, Maliki said Riyadh and Doha provide political, financial and media support to militant groups, and accused them of “buying weapons for the benefit of these terrorist organisations”.

He also accused Saudi Arabia of supporting global “terrorism”.

Maliki condemned “the dangerous Saudi stance” of supporting “terrorism in the world —  it supports it in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya and even in countries outside” the Arab world.

Violence in Iraq has peaked to a level reminiscent of when the country was just emerging from a brutal period of sectarian bloodshed in which tens of thousands of people died.

More than 150 people have been killed so far this month and upwards of 1,850 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.