Suicide bomber targets school
13 children, headmaster killed as truck filled with explosives detonated at Iraq playground
BAGHDAD— A suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives on the playground of an elementary school in northern Iraq on Sunday morning, killing 13 children and the headmaster, the police said.
As many as 80 other people, including students and teachers, were wounded in the blast, the first of three attacks that left at least 31Iraqis dead Sunday.
Shortly after the attack on the school in the village of Qabak, just outside Tal Afar in Mosul province, another suicide bomber crashed a smaller pickup into the village’s police station and set off explosives, killing three officers and wounding 15.
In the afternoon, a third suicide bomber attacked a group of Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, killing 14 and wounding 34.
Aday earlier, at least 80 people died in several attacks, including a bomb- ing in Baghdad that killed 51 Shiite pilgrims. The wave of attacks was Iraq’s worst outburst of violence since 2008. In Qabak, a Shiite Turkmen village, the mayor, Abdul al-Obaidi, called the attack on the school “a crime against humanity” as he surveyed books splattered with blood. “The terrorists are trying to stop us from living and sending our children to school, but they will not, as we have our unity,” he said. Many of the children who survived the attack were seriously wounded and were sent to larger, betterequipped hospitals in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, medical officials said. “I don’t remember what happened,” said a sobbing boy named Ali, who suffered wounds to his face and legs. “I just want to see my mother.” In Baghdad, Shiite pilgrims were hit for the second time in less than 24 hours despite heightened security measures. The pilgrims had been visiting the shrines of revered imams this weekend. One wounded pilgrim, speaking from a Baghdad hospital Sunday, remained defiant. “They killed more than 50 of us yesterday, and they thought that we would stop,” the pilgrim, Abdul Amir, said. “They thought wrong. We will never stop visiting our imams. Our security forces just look at us and do nothing.”