Bomb Kills 18 Near Baghdad Police Station

Bomb Kills 18 Near Baghdad Police Station

Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters

A woman looked at the wreckage of a vehicle destroyed in bomb attacks in the Baghdad neighborhood of Nahdha on Wednesday.
By ERIC OWLES and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

BAGHDAD — A bomb planted in a minibus exploded near a parking lot of the Iraqi traffic police in a market neighborhood of northeastern Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 18 people and injuring 52, Ministry of Interior and police officials said.

The bomb, stowed inside a Kia van, struck a small market of barbershops, butchers and a book store after a small explosion nearby a few minutes earlier had drawn people out of their homes, according to police officers caught up in the blast. The attack, in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Nahdha, appeared to target an Iraqi traffic police station located nearby. At least three of those killed were Iraqi police.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the bombing. However, the pace of violence in Iraq has picked up in the last few weeks with the approach of provincial elections and both American and Iraqi security officials have warned that there could be more violence in the coming days. Last week, 48 people died in the tense northern city of Kirkuk when a suicide bomber attacked a packed restaurant where Sunni Arabs and Kurds were meeting to ease frictions.

The attack near the parking lot in Baghdad came on the same day that Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, in a surprise visit to the Iraqi capital, confirmed that British troops will leave Iraq next summer. In a joint statement with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Mr. Brown confirmed the long-expected withdrawal, and said: “The role played by the U.K. combat forces is drawing to a close. These forces will have completed their tasks in the first half of 2009 and will then leave Iraq.”

Britain currently has 4,100 troops in Iraq, down from the 46,000 troops that joined the American-led invasion in March 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The British contingent constituted Washington’s most important ally in the invasion. After his meeting with Mr. Maliki, Mr. Brown later left for the southern city of Basra, where the remaining British troops are based.

The parking lot in Nahdha is in a mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhood. The large, poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City is nearby. Residents said they had complained for some time that an Iraqi police station — a favorite target for insurgents — was located in a residential area.

Injured Iraqi police officers remained on the scene after the dead were taken away in ambulances. Maj. Mahdi Ahmid, an administrative officer with the Iraqi traffic police, had large bandages on his face after being struck by shrapnel. He said he heard the first blast, stepped outside to find out what happened and five minutes later the second, more powerful bomb exploded.

The Iraqi police officers’ cars were shattered and shrapnel, tires and debris landed more than a block away. Abu Aws, a 40-year-old former traffic police officer who now lives down the street from the bomb site, showed a reporter a child’s shoe with a piece of metal sticking out of it.

At least one body was recovered without a head and when police officers arrived on the scene they called out for missing colleagues.

The explosion damaged a water line and blood mixed with the mud in the streets. Four teenage boys used pieces of cardboard to pick up human remains in the middle of the street.

A resident who asked to remain anonymous said he brought blankets out “to cover three of my friends who were killed.”

One officer, Cpl. Nadeen Amel, was injured by flying glass. A bandage was wrapped around his head and blood was splattered on his uniform.

In a second bombing in Baghdad on Wednesday, a car bomb at a checkpoint in Baghdad killed two civilians and wounded four Iraqi police officers.

Mr. Brown’s announcement of the British withdrawal is one of many changes now under way as Iraqis take more control of military operations in the country. As part of those changes, the American military announced late Tuesday that it was handing over to the Iraqi judicial system 39 detainees who held positions in the regime of Saddam Hussein and are alleged to have committed crimes against the Iraqi people.

Wednesday’s visit was Mr. Brown’s fourth to Iraq and followed a valedictory appearance earlier this week by President Bush during which he was forced to dodge shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist during a news conference.