KIM GAMEL
Associated Press
Tuesday, February 13, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq will close its borders with Syria and Iran for 72 hours as part of the drive to secure and pacify Baghdad, the Iraqi commander of the crackdown said Tuesday, hours after a suicide bombing in a mainly Shiite neighborhood killed at least 15 people.

Lt. Gen. Abboud Gambar, addressing the nation on behalf of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, did not say when the borders would be closed. A government official said it was expected within two days.

The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the borders with Iran would only be partially reopened even after the 72-hour period ended.

The United States has long charged that Iran and Syria were allowing militants to use their territory to slip into Iraq to attack U.S. and Iraqi forces, as well as civilian Iraqi Shiites. Iraqi authorities have routinely echoed the U.S. charges against Syria, but they rarely accused Iran of the same.

The U.S. military in Iraq this week accused the highest levels of the Iranian leadership of arming Shiite militants in Iraq with sophisticated armor-piercing roadside bombs that have killed more than 170 members of the U.S.-led coalition forces. Iran maintains close relations with most of Iraq's Shiite leaders.

Gambar said Baghdad's nighttime curfew would be extended by one hour when the security drive gets under way, starting from 8 p.m. and ending at 6 a.m. Permits issued to civilians to carry weapons in public would be suspended for the duration of the operation, he said.

The U.S. military announced last week that the security drive was already in progress, but the Iraqi side appeared to think differently, with al-Maliki saying the plan had yet to begin. President Bush has committed an additional 21,500 American troops to the security plan, which is widely seen as possibly the U.S. military's final attempt to placate the capital.

It would be the third attempt by U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies to end the violence in Baghdad since al-Maliki came to office in May 2006. A total of 90,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops would take part in the drive.

Gambar's address suggested Iraqi authorities planned to exercise wide-reaching powers to ensure the success of the plan. A criminal court, for example, would hold emergency hearings to rule under Iraq's anti-terrorism law on cases such as murder, theft, rape, kidnapping, damaging public property or the possession and transfer of arms and ammunition, he said.

He said security forces would try to avoid going into places of worship, adding they would do so in "cases of extreme emergencies when it is feared that these places pose a threat to the lives of citizens or if they are used for unlawful purposes."

U.S. and Iraqi authorities have often said Sunni insurgents used mosques to store arms or fire at troops.

Gambar, a Shiite and a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War when he served in Saddam Hussein's army, said security forces also planned to monitor mail, parcels, telegrams and wireless communication devices for the duration of the operation. He did not elaborate.

He said he would report to al-Maliki on the progress of the operation on weekly basis, suggesting that the crackdown may last for weeks.

The U.S. military said a soldier was killed Sunday in fighting in volatile Anbar province, west of Baghdad, raising to 42 the number of American deaths this month.

Tuesday's suicide truck bombing, which also wounded 27 people, was the latest in a series of attacks since the announcement of the security crackdown aimed at stopping the sectarian violence that has killed hundreds since the start of the year.

Witnesses said the suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden truck into cars parked on a street as people were entering a Trade Ministry office that administers ration cards for the area.

The office and warehouses storing sugar and other rationed foodstuffs are located next to the private College of Economic Sciences, but it was closed for midterm so no students were among the casualties, police said.

Haider Hussein, a student who lives in the district, said the bomber was driving a small blue Kia truck.

"The explosion was so huge that it broke the windows of nearby offices and houses," he said, adding that 34 parked cars were burned. "I and some other people helped carry five wounded ministry guards to civilian cars that took them to the hospital."

Police also discovered a booby-trapped ambulance about 500 yards away, but the explosives were defused.

Hours later, a parked car bomb exploded near a bakery in another predominantly Shiite area in southeastern Baghdad, killing four people and wounding four, police said.

On Monday, huge car bombs shattered the crowded Shorja marketplace — Baghdad's oldest — killing 81 people and wounding 172, according to officials at four hospitals.

The attack appeared timed to coincide with the first anniversary — on the Muslim lunar calendar — of the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the town of Samarra north of Baghdad, an al-Qaida provocation that unleashed months of sectarian bloodletting.

The Samarra attack took place on Feb. 22, 2006, according to the Western calendar.

The recent bombs apparently are part of a bid by Sunni insurgents to target Shiite commercial centers and livelihoods and kill as many people as possible.

The nation's main Sunni clerical organization, the Association of Muslims Scholars, condemned Monday's bombing. The association blamed the attack on "criminals" and "external groups" seeking to foment civil war.

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