Chlorine bomb attacks in Iraq kill 2, sicken 350

BAGHDAD — Suicide bombers sent another chilling message to Sunni Arab tribal leaders who have rebuffed Al Qaeda, blowing up three trucks rigged with chlorine-laden explosives in Al Anbar province, the military said Saturday. At least two people were killed, and more than 350 were sickened by the noxious clouds, including seven U.S. troops.

Since January, suspected Sunni insurgents have waged six attacks involving a combination of explosive devices and chlorine, killing 26 people. One of the bombings, in the provincial capital Ramadi, left 16 people dead.

The latest bombings appeared to be part of a vicious campaign by Sunni insurgents against local sheiks who had once harbored them but turned against them last fall in the face of relentless attacks against civilians.

Caught in the middle is the province’s overwhelmingly Sunni population, whose mosques, homes and roads have been targeted in retaliation for their elders’ decision to work with the Iraqi government and the U.S. military.

Last month, at least 37 Iraqis were killed in a bomb attack as they were leaving a Sunni mosque in the province. A preacher at the mosque in Habbaniya, 40 miles west of Baghdad, had delivered a blistering sermon a day earlier condemning Al Qaeda activities in Iraq, an official in the town said at the time.

Witnesses say one of the latest attacks targeted the home of a sheik who is part of the newly formed Anbar Salvation Council, a Sunni group that has led calls to oppose Al Qaeda.

Another council member, Sheik Hameed Farhan Hays, described the attacks as the last gasps of Al Qaeda. “This is the end of Al Qaeda in Anbar province,” he said. “There is nothing left for them but these cowardly acts.”

U.S. and Iraqi officials have praised the tribal leaders for turning their backs on the insurgents. Last week, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, visited Ramadi to encourage their continued cooperation.

But the violence resulting from their turnabout is bound to increase pressure on U.S. and Iraqi officials to improve security in Al Anbar at a time when the military is struggling to contain Baghdad’s bloodshed.

The issue of security came up during Maliki’s talks with the sheiks last week, said Sheik Abdul-Sattar abu Risha, one of those who met with the prime minister.

“Because he has authority, we want him to ensure the laws are being followed,” the sheik said after the meeting. “How can a country be reestablished if there are not security forces and security?”

The latest bombings took place over a three-hour period Friday and hit targets near Ramadi and Fallouja.

The military said the first bomb went off at 4:11 p.m. at a checkpoint a few miles east of Ramadi. About two hours later, a second explosion occurred south of Fallouja, in the town of Amariya. About 40 minutes later, another bomb exploded farther south.

Amariya police said two Iraqi police officers died in the attack there. Altogether, the military said, about 350 Iraqis and seven U.S. troops were sickened and treated for symptoms that included skin and lung irritations and vomiting. Seven children and four adults required treatment at a U.S. military medical facility. The statement said one of the trucks was carrying a 200-gallon chlorine gas tank rigged with explosives.

The explosions sent noxious clouds into the air. Chlorine gas weapons, whose use dates to World War I, can burn the eyes, nose and throat and cause dizziness, nausea and vomiting. In high doses, they may cause fatal lung damage.

Attacks against civilians have led many Sunni Arabs who once embraced Al Qaeda to turn their backs on the group in recent months. Even those who continue to oppose the U.S. presence in Iraq say they have been turned off by the killings of respected tribal elders, and by an approach that justifies slaying civilians who do not accept the group’s extremist dogma.

“There is no honest Iraqi that accepts the killing of innocent Iraqis,” said Omar Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab who said he had grown disenchanted with Al Qaeda’s tactics.

Military officials say growing disillusionment with Al Qaeda in its usual strongholds is evident in the number of police recruits, which they say has soared to more than 4,500 in Al Anbar province from about 100 a year ago. Not only has this led to improved intelligence, they say, it also has created divisions in the insurgency.

Islamic extremists, former members of Saddam Hussein’s ousted Sunni-dominated regime and Sunni nationalists once collaborated because they shared the same goal: getting rid of U.S. forces.

The region remains a hotbed of disparate groups, but alliances have fractured to some extent, said Army Col. John Charlton, the commander of U.S. troops in Ramadi.

“There was a certain level of tactical cooperation between these groups,” he said. “We’re not seeing that to the same degree now.”

Al Qaeda’s effort to foment civil war in Iraq by attacking Shiite Muslim civilians appears to have been a factor in Al Anbar residents’ growing resentment of the group. This also has caused friction among its leaders.

Documents discovered by U.S. forces after Abu Musab Zarqawi, leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in June indicated that higher-ranking leaders of the group outside Iraq had chided Zarqawi for targeting civilians and had told him to focus on American troops.

Opposition to the group in Al Anbar grew last year after the killing of a popular engineer who championed rapprochement with Shiites, and of a tribal sheik whose body was hidden for four days after his death -- when Islamic custom mandates swift burial.

“At the beginning they were welcomed and accepted by Iraqis,” said Midhat abu Salam, a political science professor at Al Anbar University in Ramadi. “But as time passed, the fanaticism and radicalism were exposed, and they started targeting citizens,” he said, describing the group’s message as: “You are with us or against us.”

Military officials have warned that Sunni insurgents will continue large-scale attacks as they try to derail a new U.S.-Iraqi security plan and undermine support for Maliki’s government. Suicide bombings have increased since the plan was launched Feb. 13.

Also Saturday, a suicide bomber drove a car loaded with explosives through a checkpoint on the outskirts of Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone. At least four people were killed, including three Iraqi police officers.

In other violence, a small Sunni mosque in the Sunni-dominated neighborhood of Dora was blown up, the latest in a series of attacks on Sunni places of worship. Armed men first abducted the mosque’s guard and then planted explosives inside the building.

Police said they had found the bodies of 19 men scattered across Baghdad, apparent victims of Shiite death squads targeting Sunnis.

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Times staff writers Suhail Ahmad, Saif Hameed and Saif Rasheed, and special correspondents in Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallouja and Taji contributed to this report.