BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber pushing an electric heater atop a cart packed with explosives attacked a high school north of Baghdad on Tuesday, leaving students and teachers bloodied and bewildered as insurgents appeared to be expanding their list of targets.
The bombing — one of two attacks near Iraqi schools on the same day — follows a wave of recent blasts blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq against funerals and social gatherings.
The trend points to the possibility that al-Qaida has shifted tactics to focus increasingly on so-called soft targets and undermine public confidence that things are looking better in the country. The backlash also coincides with a U.S.-led offensive trying to uproot insurgents from strongholds around Baghdad.
In the suicide attack, the bomber posed as a shopper or merchant moving an electric heater, an apparent attempt to deflect attention from the explosive-rigged cart.
The blast struck the front of a two-story schoolhouse in Baqouba half an hour after classes began. Panicked parents rushed to find out if their children were alive or dead.
A 25-year-old male bystander was killed and 21 people were wounded — 12 students, eight teachers and one police officer, a doctor said.
“I can’t think of any reason to target students,” said 15-year-old Mohammed Abbas, his wounded head in a bandage as his father stood near his hospital bed. “We did not expect that explosions would reach our school.”
“What is our guilt that caused the terrorists to target us?” a teacher asked, crying as blood covered her face ripped by sharp bits of glass.
“I blame the government, which is unable to protect schools,” the teacher said, adding that she could not find her son who attends the school.
In the other attack, a roadside bomb exploded next to a girl’s high school in Baghdad’s western district of Amiriyah, wounding a 7-year-old boy who was passing by. But police said the target was an American patrol, not the school.
In other developments, the U.S. military said a soldier killed over the weekend south of Baghdad was the first American casualty in a roadside bomb attack on the newly introduced, heavily armored Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicle.
Also, a U.S. soldier was killed and another was injured when their vehicle rolled over in the northern city of Kirkuk, the military said.
At least 3,930 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
New flag for Iraq
Iraq’s parliament on Tuesday passed a measure to change the Saddam Hussein-era flag, meeting the demands of Iraq’s Kurdish minority.
The measure will remove the red, white and black flag’s three stars — which were thought to represent Hussein’s Baath Party — and change the calligraphy of the words “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Great.” The calligraphy was a copy of Hussein’s handwriting.
Many Kurds remember Hussein’s forces hoisting the Iraqi flag during campaigns of persecution that saw thousands killed with poison gas.
A law to establish a new banner must be passed in one year.
Associated Press
U.S. military deaths
The latest identifications reported by the U.S. military of personnel killed in Iraq:
Army Staff Sgt. Justin R. Whiting, 27, Hancock, N.Y.; died Saturday in Mosul when his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Campbell, Ky.
Army Spc. Richard B. Burress, 25, Naples, Fla.; died Saturday in Arab Jabour when his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.
Army Spc. Jon M. Schoolcraft III, 26, Wapakoneta, Ohio; died Saturday in Taji after his vehicle struck an explosive; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
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