Iraq’s deadliest attacks since 1 May
The following is a list of the most important attacks to rock Iraq since 1 May when United States President George Bush declared combat operations over.
US forces have borne the brunt of the resistance, losing 156 soldiers in post-combat attacks:
24 June: Six British military police are killed in the southern town of al-Majar al-Kabir in a gunbattle with residents, angry about house searches for illegal weapons using dogs, considered unclean in Islam.
5 July: Seven US-trained Iraqi police recruits are killed and 40 wounded in a blast at a training centre in Ramadi, about 100 km west of Baghdad.
7 Aug: A car bomb outside the Jordanian mission in Baghdad kills at least 14 people and wounds dozens.
11 Aug: Six Iraqi prisoners die and 59 are wounded when the Abu Gharib prison west of Baghdad comes under mortar fire.
19 Aug: A truck bomb outside UN headquarters in Baghdad kills 22 people, including the international body’s top Iraq envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
29 Aug: A car bomb kills 83 people, including Iraq’s leading Shia politician, Ayat Allah Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim, and wounds 125 outside one of Islam’s holiest shrines in the central Iraqi city of Najaf.
12 Sept: US gunfire kills 12, nine of them police officers, in Falluja. The US military apologises and announces the opening of an investigation, which exonerates those responsible.
20 Sept: First attack in Baghdad targeting an official of the Iraqi Governing Council: Akila al-Hashimi dies five days later.
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The UN headquarters in Baghdad |
25 Sept: Eight Iraqi civilians die and 18 are injured when a mortar bomb falls on a crowded square in Baqubah, a city northeast of Baghdad.
9 Oct: A human bomber blows up an explosives-laden car outside a Baghdad police station, killing eight other people, three of them police officers.
12 Oct: At least six people are killed and 10 seriously wounded in a car bombing outside the Baghdad Hotel, home to US security personnel and contractors, as well as some members of the US-backed Governing Council.
14 Oct: A car bomb explodes outside the Turkish mission in Baghdad, killing the bomber and wounding six people, including two mission guards.
26 Oct: Rockets pound Baghdad’s Rashid Hotel where US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is staying, killing a soldier and wounding 17 other people.
27 Oct: Five explosions around Baghdad target four police stations and the ICRC offices, killing at least 19 and wounding 68, including 10 US soldiers.
2 Nov: A Chinook helicopter carrying US troops on leave is shot down by a missile near Falluja, killing 16 soldiers and wounding 26 in the worst single attack on occupation forces.
7 Nov: A US Black Hawk helicopter is downed in Tikrit, probably by a rocket-propelled grenade, killing all six aboard.
12 Nov: At least 25 people killed, most of them Italian military personnel in an attack on the Italian operational headquarters at al-Nisiriya in southern Iraq.