BAGHDAD — Suicide bombers killed 17 people — including two American soldiers — and wounded more than 100 in a string of blasts in two Iraqi cities Thursday as a timetable for withdrawing all U.S. troops won final government approval.
The brazen attacks in areas where the U.S. military has struggled for years to maintain order raised questions about Iraq’s ability to ensure its own security as the U.S. scales down its own combat role under the newly ratified U.S.-Iraqi security pact, which calls for an American withdrawal within three years.
Iraq’s three-member presidential council signed off on the pact Thursday, removing the last legal barrier so that the agreement can take effect Jan. 1.
But the latest bombings underscore the fragility of Iraq’s recent security gains, adding new urgency to U.S. efforts to train and equip an Iraqi security force capable of maintaining order after American troops have gone home.
The two Americans were killed when a suicide driver detonated an explosive-laden car near an Iraqi checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul, military spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Doherty said. Iraqi police said eight people were wounded, most of them civilians.
But the deadliest attacks occurred in Fallujah, the country’s most heavily guarded city and once the symbol of Sunni Arab resistance to the U.S. occupation.
Truck bombers struck within minutes of each other outside the concrete barriers surrounding two police stations in different parts of the city, killing 15 people, wounding more than 100 and shattering nearby buildings, police and hospital officials said.
An al-Qaida front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on a militant Web site.
The thunderous blasts could be heard across the city of about 400,000 and sent giant plumes of black smoke rising over the dust-brown buildings.
“I was drinking tea in my house when a big explosion took place. It was like an earthquake,” said Saad Ibrahim, a 34-year-old mechanic who lives near one of the police stations. “I could hear the cry of a child trapped in a house. … We tried to help him, but the police and firefighters arrived and asked us to leave the area.”
Local authorities announced a curfew and closed all exits and entrances to the city. Police said the blasts were so huge that investigators could not find the chassis or the engines of the two trucks used in the attacks.
“It looks like the trucks evaporated,” a senior police official said.
Northeast of Baghdad, a bomb left on a parked motorcycle exploded near a restaurant in Baqouba, another one-time Sunni militant stronghold, killing three people and wounding 10, according to police at the security headquarters for the surrounding Diyala province.
The bombings in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad in Anbar province, were significant because they show the resilience of an insurgency that has suffered severe setbacks over the past two years as many Sunnis turned against al-Qaida and other religious extremists.
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