Iraq received US tip before blasts

December 14, 2009|Associated Press

BAGHDAD - Iraq’s top security chiefs said yesterday that the US military had warned them about an imminent attack but the tip came too late to act on before last week’s deadly bombings against government sites in Baghdad.

An Interior Ministry official said 13 Al Qaeda-linked suspects have been detained in connection with the bombings, the third of their kind since August. At least 127 people were killed and more than 500 wounded in the bombings.

The disclosure of the US tip and the announcement on the arrests came on the third day of a grilling by Iraq’s parliament of government officials on the security breaches that allowed last Tuesday’s attacks to take place in some of the most heavily protected sections of the Iraqi capital.

“There are 13 coffins waiting for criminals implicated in Tuesday attacks, and those criminals will be tried and convicted,’’ Jawad al-Bolani, Iraq’s interior minister, told lawmakers.

He did not elaborate, but an official at his office said Bolani was referring to the arrests of the insurgents whom he said helped coordinate the bombings. The US military did not immediately confirm the arrests.

News of the arrests followed the announcement in parliament earlier yesterday by the former top military commander for Baghdad that an unspecified number of street level security officials have been detained for alleged negligence that allowed the bombings to take place.

Lieutenant General Abboud Qanbar did not give more details, but authorities had taken similar measures following bombings Aug. 18 and Oct. 25.

Baghdad’s security command was warned by the US military that insurgents would carry out three attacks. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki replaced Qanbar as Baghdad’s military commander with Ahmed Hashim Ouda after lawmakers demanded answers about the breaches that allowed last Tuesday’s suicide car bomb attacks.