More Violence in Iraq: 33 Die at Iraq Peace Conference (News Update)

by Damozel | A bomber killed at least 33 people who were attending a "reconciliation conference" in the municipality of Abu Ghraib. (BBC News)

The bomb exploded as delegates came out of the conference, attended by a large number of VIPs.

Police sources said tribal leaders, police, soldiers and journalists were among the dead in the latest attack.

Two journalists for the Cairo-based independent TV station al-Baghdadiya were among the dead. (BBC News)

In case you haven't been paying attention, this is the third major attack in the course of a few days.

More than 30 died in an attack on a police recruitment centre on Sunday.

On Thursday, a car bomb exploded at a cattle market in Babel province killing 10....

Maj Gen David Perkins, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq, told a news conference on Sunday that violence was at its lowest level since the summer of 2003.

He was also reported as saying the recent series of attacks was evidence that terror groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq were growing desperate as they sought to derail security gains in the country. (BBC News; more here)

That must be it.  By the way, the attack on Sunday (March 8) killed 28 people and wounded 57. (BBC News 8 Mar)

The attack happened at about 1000 (0700 GMT) in "the middle of a crowd outside the [police] academy on Palestine Street", a police official told AFP news agency.

Reports suggest the bomber detonated a belt of explosives as he crashed his motorbike into a line of people waiting at the side entrance to the training centre. Most of the dead were police recruits, while others were serving officers and civilians. 

CNN says:

Most of the victims of Sunday's strike were police officers and recruits.... The same academy was targeted on December 1 in a double bombing that killed 16 and wounded 46.

The violence came after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday rallied sheikhs of the nation's tribes to participate in Iraq's government.

It was the latest official effort to further reconciliation among Sunnis, Shiites and tribes of different sects and bring some former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party into the political fold.

After the invasion, the U.S.-led coalition decided to purge Iraqi institutions of Baathists, most of whom were Sunni Arabs.

Al-Maliki, who is Shiite, has been criticized in the past by minority groups for not fairly representing Iraqi's ethnic groups

That, says the BBC, was the highest death toll "for nearly a month." (BBC News 8 Mar)

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