Car Bombing Kills 20 Near Police Academy

Violence erupted across northern Iraq on Saturday, as a car bomb killed at least 20 people in front of a police academy and a U.S. helicopter was shot down during an attack on a suspected militant hide-out.

The helicopter’s two crew members were injured when the craft crashed in Tall Afar, a town near the Syrian border, the military said.

Both were recovered during a rescue operation in which U.S. troops killed two insurgents, the military said.

The attack on the academy in the northern oil city of Kirkuk was at least the fourth on a police building since the U.S. turned over sovereignty to Iraqis in June. It marked a renewed effort by insurgents to disrupt the training of Iraqi security forces that are supposed to relieve the burden on U.S.-led troops charged with maintaining order here.

The upheaval in the north, usually a quiet region, was a reminder that large swaths of this war-torn nation remain dangerous for U.S. troops and Iraqis alike.

U.S. Marines also launched an operation Saturday to stabilize an area of south-central Iraq, and saboteurs again attacked the oil infrastructure in the north and south of the country, the military and Iraqi officials said.

In the first incident in the north Saturday, an attacker detonated a car bomb as hundreds of recruits were leaving the police academy.

The blast left a scene of twisted cars, smoking rubble and blood-smeared concrete. Police said 35 people were wounded.

Witnesses reported seeing an approaching car exploding about 100 yards from the entrance to the academy around 3:30 p.m.

Most of those killed were recruits, but at least one child was among the dead. The bomber also was killed.

“I saw many dead bodies lying on the ground in front of the academy,” said Kawa Latif, 29, who lives across the street. “It was a mess.”

Insurgents have repeatedly targeted police stations, municipal buildings and authority figures in an attempt to undermine the rebuilding effort in the country, now under the control of an interim Iraqi government.

With elections scheduled for January, the government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has struggled to prove its legitimacy in the face of challenges such as an armed standoff in the city of Najaf last month by followers of renegade cleric Muqtada Sadr, who commands legions of impoverished Shiite Muslims.

Saturday’s events suggested that the interim government’s problems are far from over as the insurgency rages in different areas of the country. Already, U.S. troops are unable to enter Fallouja, the scene of intense fighting last spring that led to a deal to turn control of the Sunni Muslim stronghold over to local security forces.

U.S. troops and Iraqi national guard forces raided Tall Afar on Saturday morning in search of insurgents who have fired on security forces in recent days.

Three Iraqi guardsmen were injured when they were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades, according to the U.S. military.

A U.S. reconnaissance and attack helicopter that was part of the raid crashed after hostile fire started a blaze in the engine compartment. Later, U.S. forces called in a bomb strike near the town. The results of that attack were unclear.

Hospital officials reported 12 dead and 60 injured as a result of Saturday’s incursion in Tall Afar. Chaos broke out at one hospital as Iraqis seeking to give blood clashed with police, witnesses said.

Ethnic tension flared in the aftermath of the attacks in the north, a worrisome sign in a region where Arabs and Kurds live in proximity.

“It appears that the American forces want another Fallouja in Tall Afar as they oppress us day and night by arresting people,” said Ahmed Abbas, 45. “Above all, they are supported by traitors from the [Iraqi national guard] who are mostly Kurds.”

In Al Anbar province in lawless western Iraq, Iraqi police Saturday announced a series of attacks and kidnappings of government officials by insurgents who have accused them of corruption and “dealing with the Americans.”

In the last week, police said, insurgents killed a police officer and kidnapped Al Anbar’s postmaster, the head of the water treatment plant and an executive in the local state-owned oil industry.

At least one Iraqi contractor who had worked with the U.S. was also kidnapped, and a top provincial administrator has gone into hiding, said Col. Jesse Barker, a 1st Marine Division civil affairs coordinator in Al Anbar.

Marines working with Iraqi security forces swept through an area of south-central Iraq on Saturday that has seen a rash of kidnappings and killings, including the abduction of two French journalists, who remained missing.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, returning home Saturday after a trip through the Middle East, said he believed the two men, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were alive and being treated well.

About 2,000 Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit began operations around the town of Latifiya south of Baghdad to seek out insurgents and try to stabilize the area, said Col. Ronald J. Johnson, a Marine commander.

A roadside bomb killed five Iraqi police officers and injured nine others. There were no reports of Marine deaths.

Insurgents also struck oil pipelines, oil company officials said, temporarily driving down exports vital to Iraq’s economy.

By some estimates, attacks this year have cost the country $1 billion in oil revenue.

Also Saturday, a militant Islamic group threatened to behead a kidnapped Turkish truck driver, according to a report on Al Arabiya, a Dubai-based television news channel.

The group, calling itself the Islamic Resistance Movement, Numan Brigades, demanded that the driver’s company cease operations in Iraq, a common demand by militant organizations that have captured private contractors in an effort to cripple the reconstruction effort.

*

Times staff writer Alissa J. Rubin in Ramadi and special correspondents Yalman Zainalabideen in Kirkuk, Othman Ghanim in Basra and Roaa Ahmed in Mosul contributed to this report