Bombings kill at least 12 in Baghdad

A double suicide attack outside a Baghdad agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines killed at least 12 people on Monday, including the Sunni leader of a U.S.-backed group fighting al-Qaida, officials and witnesses said.\nA police officer said as many as 14 people died in the twin bombings that killed Riyadh al-Samarrai. The attack came a little more than a week after an audiotape of Osama bin Laden was released in which he called for renewed attacks on the mostly Sunni-armed groups.\nOne of al-Samarrai’s guards, who saw the attack, said the suicide bomber walked up to the former police colonel and embraced him before detonating his explosives.\nThe U.S. military in a statement blamed the double bombing on al-Qaida in Iraq. It was the deadliest in a series of attacks across the capital that left at least 19 dead.\nIn the initial bombing, a suicide attacker blew himself up at the entrance to the Sunni Endowment office in Baghdad’s northern Azamiyah district, said Brig. Qassim al-Moussawi. As people rushed to evacuate the wounded, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives yards away, he said.\nAl-Samarrai’s death was confirmed by a witness who is an employee of the Sunni Endowment, a member of the armed group who gave his name only as Abu Omar, and by an Iraqi army official.\nThe U.S.-backed groups – predominantly Sunni Arab fighters who turned against al-Qaida and are known as “awakening councils” – have been credited with helping reduce violence across Iraq. But they are increasingly becoming targets, with several recent bombings striking their offices and checkpoints. Monday’s blast occurred near one of their offices.\nThe Azamiyah area had been a stronghold of Sunni insurgents since 2003 as well as a safe haven for al-Qaida in Iraq militants. Local insurgents, however, rose against al-Qaida last year and joined the U.S. military in the fight against the terror network.\nThe switch of allegiance by insurgents in Azamiyah was one of the most significant in a series of similar moves across Baghdad’s Sunni neighborhoods. Azamiyah is home to Iraq’s most revered Sunni shrine, the mosque of Imam Abu Hanifa, and many in the area served as officers in Saddam Husssein’s army and security agencies, giving an edge to the insurgency there.\nReports on the number of casualties in the bombings varied.\nCmdr. Scott Rye, a U.S. military spokesman, said 12 people were killed in the attack and that 28 were wounded. Earlier, al-Moussawi said six people were killed and 26 wounded.\nBut an official at Azamiyah’s al-Noaman hospital and an army official said seven people had been killed, and that 28 had been wounded. The police officer who said 14 had been killed said some casualties had also been taken to another hospital.\nThe witnesses and most Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals or because they were not officially authorized to speak to media.