A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of Iraqis outside an army recruitment center Tuesday, killing 21 other people and injuring 27 more, the U.S. military said. It was the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since last week’s election.
There were conflicting reports about the attack, which occurred at an Iraqi National Guard headquarters at the Muthana airfield. Iraqi officials blamed the explosion on mortar fire and officials at Baghdad’s Yarmouk Hospital said they had received 16 bodies from the scene, all of them army recruits.
But witnesses reported only one explosion, and the U.S. military said the blast was caused by a suicide bomber.
Al Qaeda, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement.
“This is the beginning of the escalation we promised you,” said the statement posted on an Islamic Web site. The claim’s authenticity couldn’t be verified.
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Compiled from news services and edited by Patrick Olsen (polsen@tribune.com) and Drew Sottardi (dsottardi@tribune.com)
