Iraq bombs kill dozens in three attacks north of Baghdad

A member of the Iraqi security forces takes up position with his weapon. Two checkpoints armed by Shia militiamen were attacked on Saturday. Photograph: STRINGER/IRAQ/REUTERS

Saturday 28 February 2015

Two suicide bombs target checkpoints near Samarra following attack near busy market in town of Balad Ruz

At least 27 people have been killed by car bombs targeting a crowded market and Shia militia checkpoints north of Baghdad, Iraqi authorities have said.

The first bombs exploded on Saturday near the market in the town of Balad Ruz, 70km (45 miles) north-east of Iraq’s capital, killing 11 people and wounding 50, police and hospital officials said.

A suicide car bomber later attacked a checkpoint manned by Shia militiamen near the city of Samarra, killing eight Shia fighters and wounding 15, authorities said. No one immediately claimed the attacks.

A second suicide bomber attacked another Shia militia checkpoint just south of Samarra, killing eight fighters and wounding 16, police and hospital officials said.

Samarra and surrounding areas have been under constant attacks by Islamic State (Isis) extremists, who hold about a third of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in its self-declared caliphate. Clashes between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants followed the attack around Samarra, 95km (60 miles) north of Baghdad.

The attacks came as the country’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, vowed to punish Isis militants who smashed rare and ancient artefacts in the northern city of Mosul. The militants hold Iraq’s second-largest city and the surrounding Nineveh province.

On Thursday, Isis released a video purportedly showing militants using sledgehammers to smash the statues, describing them as idols. The vandalism drew global condemnation.

The destruction is part of a campaign by the extremists, who have destroyed a number of shrines since last summer. Abadi added that the terrorist group were also believed to have illicitly sold ancient artefacts to finance their bloody campaign, and vowed to prevent the radical Islamists from smuggling them to market.

“Those barbaric, criminal terrorists are trying to destroy the heritage of the mankind and Iraq’s civilization,” Abadi said. “We will chase them in order to make them pay for every drop of blood shed in Iraq and for the destruction of Iraq’s civilization.”

All the items were marked and recorded, he said, and Iraq would seek to track them down with international help.

“We will chase them with the world on our side. This is a serious call to the security council and the United Nations and all peace-loving states to chase them all,” he said. “Damn them and their hands for what they are doing.”

The video, released on Thursday, showed men smashing up artefacts dating back to the 7th century BC Assyrian era, toppling statues from plinths, smashing them with a sledgehammer and breaking up a carving of a winged bull with a drill.

Irina Bokova, the head of the United Nations culture and education agency, (Unesco) said a cultural tragedy had struck Iraq. “I condemn this as a deliberate attack against Iraq’s millennial history and culture, and as an inflammatory incitement to violence and hatred,” she said.

But Channel 4 News reported that most if not all the statues in the Mosul museum are replicas not originals. Mark Altaweel of the Institute of Archaeology at University College, London, said the reasons the statues had crumbled so easily was that they were plaster replicas.

“You can see iron bars inside,” he told the programme, noting this was a sure sign they were not the originals.