Attack kills 22 Iraqi troops

BAGHDAD — Terrorists attempting to derail this month’s elections killed at least 22 members of the Iraqi national guard in a suicide bombing outside a U.S. military base near the Sunni Triangle city of Balad yesterday.

A few hours later, attackers gunned down three Iraqi policemen and a local political leader near Samarra, another Sunni town, in a continuing campaign against any Iraqis who cooperate with U.S. forces.

The killings, apparently aimed at prompting defections from the newly trained security forces, have raised serious doubts about whether Iraqi police and guardsmen will be able to protect voters during the Jan. 30 election.

“This is not a good situation,” said Lt. Col. Haydar Rasool, an Iraqi national guard battalion commander in Baghdad. “If someone doesn’t want to participate in the Iraqi elections, he should not participate. Why kill us?”

News agencies reported that two men in an explosives-packed vehicle veered into a bus carrying members of Iraq’s 203rd national guard battalion.

U.S. officials said 18 guardsmen and the civilian driver of the bus were killed immediately and four guardsmen died later of wounds. A national guard spokesman said 25 guardsmen were killed.

It was the deadliest attack on Iraqi security forces since attackers gunned down about 50 new national guardsmen at a fake checkpoint in October.

Relatives of the victims wept at a local mosque, according to Reuters news agency. “My son, my son,” one man was quoted as saying as he clutched a coffin.

Violence against the security forces has been relentless. On Saturday, assassins killed a police major outside his home in Baghdad.

A videotape surfaced over the weekend in which masked men claiming ties to al Qaeda executed five members of the Iraqi security officials in broad daylight on a street in the Sunni town of Ramadi, pumping rounds of bullets into their lifeless bodies.

“To the families of civil defense forces, the national guard and the police: We tell you to say your final good-byes to your sons before you send them to us,” a masked militant says in the video. “Our reward to your sons is slaughter.”

Authorities are counting on the Iraqi police and national guard to play a key role in protecting voters at polling stations during historic parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held in 27 days.

The elections are expected to reshape the country’s political topography. Sunni Arabs dominated Iraq under the regime of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein as well as the British-installed monarchy of the 1920s and earlier during the Ottoman Empire.

Now, the majority Shi’ites and powerful Kurds are poised to take control while the Sunnis — many of whom may avoid the polls because of violence — will likely be reduced to a minor role.

Insurgents and terrorists, drawn from disaffected members of the Sunni minority, former members of Saddam’s security apparatus and religious extremists from other Arab countries, have made a determined effort to sabotage the vote.

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