Blast at Iraqi Recruiting Center Kills 21 as Insurgency Mounts

168 People Have Died in Post-Election Violence, Officials Say

U.S. soldiers in Baghdad comfort Mithal Alusi, an Iraqi politician, after gunmen ambushed his sport-utility vehicle and killed two of his sons, one in his twenties and the other 30. Alusi was a candidate in the Jan. 30 elections. (Faleh Kheiber -- Reuters)

BAGHDAD, Feb. 8 -- A man walked into a crowd of Iraqi army recruits in central Baghdad on Tuesday and blew himself up, killing at least 21 people and wounding at least 27. The death toll has reached 168 in Iraq since the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, and Iraqi security forces have borne the brunt of the violence.

Of 153 Iraqis reported killed in the past nine days, 106 were soldiers, police officers or army and police recruits, according to figures released by the U.S. military and Iraqi authorities. Fifteen U.S. soldiers have been killed in that period.

The violence suggests that the election, despite a larger-than-predicted turnout, has not slowed a grinding insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis. In addition, the Pentagon reports that there have been 1,302 military deaths since the end of major combat operations on May 1, 2003. Attacks appear to have surged in such cities as Baghdad and Mosul, where security was increased significantly for the elections.

Insurgents were "no doubt waiting for a relaxing of security restrictions after the elections" and "are probably feeling some of the saved-up animosity that couldn't work its way out during the election period," said U.S. Army Capt. Patrick M. Roddy Jr., who until last week served as liaison between the U.S. military and the government of Nineveh province, where Mosul is located. Roddy, who returned to the United States at the end of his tour, was reached via e-mail.

Roddy said "another large spike in violence" is likely when the election results are announced, including the targeting of newly elected officials. Those results may be announced by Thursday, Iraqi election officials have said.

In addition to Tuesday's bombing, at least five Iraqis were killed in separate violence in the capital. They included three Iraqi police officers who were killed during clashes in Baghdad's western Ghazaliya neighborhood, according to the Associated Press.

Assailants also ambushed a sport-utility vehicle carrying Mithal Alusi, who ran in the Jan. 30 elections. Alusi was not injured, but two of his sons -- one reportedly in his twenties and the other 30 -- were killed. Alusi was a prominent official within the Iraqi National Congress, the party headed by Ahmed Chalabi, until Chalabi expelled him for visiting Israel last year.

The al-Arabiya Arab satellite TV network showed footage of Alusi standing in a daze over his sons, both cloaked in black body bags. Two American soldiers were seen offering their condolences to Alusi and trying to console him, shaking his hand and kissing him on both cheeks, an Arab custom.

An Iraqi chef who worked for U.S. troops at Baghdad International Airport was killed Monday by gunmen, according to the Associated Press, quoting hospital sources. And the U.S. military, elaborating on reports that American soldiers in Baghdad had rescued four kidnapped Egyptian employees of an Iraqi cell phone company, said soldiers had stopped a suspicious vehicle and found two of the men blindfolded and bound in the trunk. Soldiers then arrested two suspects at the scene, the military said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, the organization headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, asserted responsibility for Tuesday's bombing in a statement on a radical Islamic Web site. The group, which also asserted responsibility for two Monday bombings, one in Mosul that killed 11 people and another in Baqubah that killed 15, vowed further attacks on "apostates and their masters."

The increased competence of the Iraqi security forces is regarded as the linchpin of the U.S. military's strategy to withdraw from Iraq. The Bush administration has said there are 136,000 such personnel who are "trained and equipped," but military officials acknowledge that only a fraction are fully prepared to provide adequate security against the insurgency.

The insurgents have repeatedly targeted not only soldiers and police but also the recruits who continue to line up for the security jobs by the thousands, in part because of the country's chronic unemployment.

A senior U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the escalating attacks are a response by the insurgents to the continued training of Iraqi security forces and show that "the terrorists are willing to take whatever barbaric action is possible to try to disrupt the development" of those forces.

Tuesday's bombing occurred about 10:30 a.m. at an army recruiting center at the old al-Muthana airfield in the heart of the capital. According to witnesses, a man walked into a crowd of approximately 100 recruits gathered in front of the front gates and detonated a bomb.

Iraqi soldiers were shooting indiscriminately at the site for hours after the bombing. The area where the bombing occurred was littered with shell casings and debris.

Haider Ahmed, a 58-year-old retiree who said he was passing by when the bombing occurred, said it was the fifth time insurgents had struck the recruiting center.

"Have not they realized that this place was targeted many times?" he said. "They have to move this place somewhere else. They must choose a place that is not one of the most crowded places in Baghdad."

The bomber "thought that he would have his dinner with the prophet," said Abed Nor Khazi, a 69-year-old street vendor, referring to the heavenly reward that insurgents sometimes promise to suicide bombers. "Is it worthy to have dinner with our prophet to commit this?"

Researcher Robert Thomason in Washington and special correspondents Dlovan Brwari in Mosul and Sahar Nageeb in Baghdad contributed to this report.