Iraqi suicide bomber kills 15 in attack on army recruits

BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (AFP) - Fifteen soldiers and army recruits were killed Tuesday as Al-Qaeda linked insurgents stepped up their bloody campaign of suicide bombings against the security forces.
A controversial politician lost two sons in another attack in Baghdad, but there was cautious optimism over the fate of a kidnapped Italian journalist after four Egyptian engineers who were abducted for 36 hours savoured their freedom and prepared to return home.
The Iraqi government also announced the arrest of a relative of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein accused of financing and arming the insurgency and sheltering members of the old regime.
A suicide bomber wearing a belt of explosives walked into a crowd of Iraqis queuing up to enlist in the Iraqi army and blew himself up, killing two soldiers and 13 recruits and wounding 15 other people, an interior ministry official said.
"I came to Baghdad from Hilla with two friends to join the army," said Mohammad Abdel Hussein, 22, who survived with a head wound. "We were queuing with several other young people when there was an enormous explosion in the middle of the group."
The attack was the latest in a wave of strikes targetting Iraqi security forces since the country's landmark January 30 election.
Militants loyal to Iraq's most wanted man, Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the bombing, in an Internet statement that could not be verified.
"A lion from the martyrs brigade of the Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers infiltrated the centre of a group of apostates wanting to join the national guard," said a statement posted on an Islamist website.
At least 23 police and potential recruits were killed in the northern cities of Mosul and Baquba on Monday in attacks also claimed by Zarqawi's group.
In another deadly attack in the capital Tuesday, gunmen sprayed gunfire on the car of Mithal al-Alusi, an outspoken Iraqi politician who favours normalising ties with Israel.
"Yes, my two sons died and my bodyguard as well. It was a gunfire attack on my car near my house," said the 52-year-old Alusi.
Alusi was waiting for his car when the gunmen opened fire on the vehicle.
"I was the target of the attack, there is no doubt," said Alusi, who escaped a grenade attack against his home on January 12.
After he became the first Iraqi politician to visit the Jewish state, Alusi and his Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation were expelled from the Iraqi National Congress, the party of the maverick Ahmed Chalabi.
"I will repeat it, even if these terrorists try to kill me again, peace is the only solution. Peace with Israel is the only solution for Iraq. Peace with everybody, but no peace for the terrorists," said a shell-shocked Alusi.
The attacks rocked Baghdad as four Egyptian engineers who were abducted for 36 hours savoured their freedom and prepared to return home.
The four, who work for a subsidiary of Egyptian telecom firm Orascom, were held up outside their Baghdad home on Sunday.
One of them said from the safety of the Egyptian embassy Tuesday that their captors suspected them of working for the US military.
There was also mounting optimism over the fate of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who was abducted in Baghdad on Friday.
An Islamist group that says it is holding the correspondent for the left-wing daily Il Manifesto and had threatened to kill her, said in an Internet statement that she would be freed "in the next few days."
The group calling itself the Organization for Jihad said it had established that she was "not spying for the infidels" -- referring to the US-led coalition.
Sgrena's colleagues and supporters had emphasised after her kidnapping that she had opposed the 2003 US-led invasion.
In further possible proof of the former regime's involvement in current violence, the Iraqi government said it had arrested last month Bashir Matar al-Tikriti, a relative of Saddam's.
"Bashir Matar is considered one of Saddam Hussein's relatives and one of those who had close connections with the old regime," the government said in a statement.
It said Matar was suspected of having sheltered wanted members of the old regime, including Saddam's younger son Qusay before he was killed in July 2003, and of having financed and armed the insurgency.
Amid the unrest, more details from the election count showed the United Iraqi Alliance, backed by Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was set to get more than half of the seats in the new 275-member national assembly.
Though its share has fallen to about 51 percent of the vote, it should still get an absolute majority in the assembly as many of the votes still to be counted are from Shiite strongholds in the south.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will press NATO allies to help out more in Iraq when he attends a meeting of defence ministers in France on Thursday.
The invasion of Iraq opened bitter international divisions, but US officials said they hoped the election would ease resistance to a larger NATO role.

02/08/2005 14:16 GMT - AFP