BAGHDAD: Iraqi police officials have claimed that children were used as decoys in a weekend car bombing in which the driver gained permission to park in a busy shopping area after he pointed out that he was leaving his children in the back seat.
The children were blown up.
The account appeared to confirm one given by U.S. Maj.-Gen. Michael Barbero, who said the vehicle used in an attack on Sunday was waved through a U.S. military checkpoint because two children were visible in the back.
'LOWERED SUSPICION'
He said it was the first reported use of children in a car bombing in Baghdad. "Children in the back seat lowered suspicion, (so) we let it move through, they parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back," Barbero told reporters in Washington.
"The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn't changed."
Other U.S. officials said later that in addition to the two children, three Iraqi bystanders were killed in the attack near a marketplace in the northern Baghdad neighbourhood of Azamiyah and seven people were injured.
The officials had no other details, including the ages of the children.
HOLIDAY CELEBRATION
Two policemen, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the general was referring to a car bomb Sunday that killed eight Iraqis and wounded 28 others in the predominantly Shiite district of Shaab. The attack targeted people cooking food at open-air grills as part of a Shiite Muslim holiday commemorating the anniversary of the Prophet Mohammed's death.
The reports could not be independently confirmed.
Youths often have been among insurgent victims, but the use of children as decoys would signal a new level of ruthlessness in the fight for control of the capital.
According to the UN's mission in Iraq, at least 204 children were killed and 777 were wounded in fighting in 2006.
Courtesy -- KIM GAMEL
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