A suicide bomber blew himself up and killed 50 people in a crowd waiting outside a police recruitment centre in the Iraqi city of Tikrit yesterday, in the bloodiest attack in more than two months.
The blast, which also wounded up to 150, was the first major strike in Iraq since the formation of a new government on December 21 and recalled an August attack against an army recruitment centre in Baghdad that killed dozens of people.
“I have been trying for hours to call my brother, he was in the queue to join the police but his phone is off,” said Mohammed Aiseh, who was standing at a checkpoint set up to bar family members from entering the city’s hospital, which was already filled with victims.
“I don’t even know if he is dead or wounded,” the 38-year-old said, sobbing.
An AFP journalist said the bomb site was covered in torn flesh and pools of blood, with pieces of clothing and shoes scattered across the scene.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said his government would continue investigations until it found those responsible for the attack in the middle of Tikrit, the hometown of now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein, north of the capital,
Policemen and soldiers had cordoned off the site and ambulances were rushing wounded people to a nearby hospital.
“Fifty people were killed and 150 wounded by a suicide bomber at a police recruitment centre in Tikrit,” an interior ministry official said in Baghdad.
Tikrit police put the toll at 49 dead and 117 wounded. Conflicting death tolls are common in the aftermath of attacks, with the blasts causing widespread confusion and chaos.
The police said that of the 49 dead, all but two were potential recruits.
Salaheddin provincial council, which held an emergency session following the blast, called on the central government to recognise the dead as members of the police, so that their families would be awarded higher levels of compensation.
It also declared three days of mourning and said all the wounded would be allowed to join the police.
The interior ministry official said Tikrit’s main hospital was not able to cope with all the casualties and that some of the wounded would be transferred as far away as Baghdad and the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.
Mosques in Tikrit used loudspeakers to broadcast calls for people to donate blood to hospitals.
Mr Maliki condemned the attack, saying “terrorists” had once again targeted the innocent.
“Once again the terrorists returned to their usual tactics of killing the innocent and targeting the brave young people who wanted to serve their country and defend it,” he said in a statement.
“The repetition of this heinous crime in the same style (as the August attack) confirms there is something wrong in (the methods used for) identifying those who are responsible,” he said.
“We will follow the case closely until we find who is responsible, and the reasons that let this tragic catastrophe happen.”
The August attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq.
In the latest attack, witnesses said the would-be recruits had been queuing to enter the centre since 6.00 a.m. (0300 GMT), with the attacker detonating his payload at the entrance to the site at around 10.15 a.m.
“I had been in the queue since 7.00 a.m., and before the bomb I heard someone shouting at someone else,” said 21-year-old Emad Atta, who suffered wounds to his leg and shoulder.