Fallujah Bombing Targets Mourners of Tribal Figure
Dozens Killed; Al-Qaeda in Iraq Suspected

By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 25, 2007

BAGHDAD, May 24 -- A lethal suicide car bombing Thursday in the restive city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, was meant to undermine and intimidate tribal leaders who have aligned against the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, local officials said.

At least 34 people were killed and 66 wounded when a car packed with explosives plowed into a funeral procession for Allawi al-Issawi, assassinated a day earlier, who was a member of the Albu Issa tribe. He had been active in promoting the Anbar Salvation Council, as the tribal alliance is known, friends said.

Hospital authorities and others said that al-Qaeda in Iraq was believed to be responsible for the attack. There was no immediate assertion of responsibility.

"They are targeting the good elements to put an end to this awakening among the people," said Anbar Salvation Council member Jassem Mohammed Salih. He said that al-Qaeda in Iraq was behind recent attacks on tribal leaders but that "after each terrorist act, support for the council increases."

The Fallujah attack followed a suicide bombing late Tuesday night inside the house of an anti-al-Qaeda tribal member near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, in which 10 family members, including women and children, were killed.

A diplomat in Baghdad, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said the nurturing of the tribal alliance by the United States was troubling because it had the potential to empower one armed, private group to battle another and was pushing al-Qaeda in Iraq and its violent operations into neighboring Diyala province, where murders and suicide bombings are on the rise.

But U.S. officials see the alliance as a significant development and say it is not meant to evolve into a private army.

"There are dramatic changes in al-Anbar," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. John Allen, deputy commander of the area that includes the province, said at a news conference Tuesday. "By and large, al-Qaeda has been expelled out of the population centers," he asserted, although "there will be spectacular attacks by al-Qaeda to gain headlines and to grab attention."

"The security improvements have been brought about by a groundswell of opposition to al-Qaeda, represented in the fact that just in a year, the police forces in al-Anbar have grown from about 2,000 to 14,500," mostly from the large number of tribal recruits, he said.

Salih, the tribal leader, said that U.S. authorities were hindering the council's efforts to combat al-Qaeda in Iraq. "The Americans are restricting our work in chasing al-Qaeda, because we used to work as tribes, but now they want us to obey the law 100 percent," he said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said Thursday that a body pulled from the Euphrates River south of Baghdad on Wednesday was that of Pfc. Joseph J. Anzack Jr., 20, one of three missing soldiers who were abducted about two weeks ago when their unit was ambushed by insurgents. Four soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter also were killed in the attack.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that is said to have been founded by al-Qaeda in Iraq, has claimed to be holding the soldiers but has offered no proof. About 6,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops are continuing to search areas south and west of Baghdad for the two soldiers, Spec. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in Anbar province Wednesday during combat operations, the military said Thursday. Those deaths, along with that of Anzack, brought to 83 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far this month.

In Washington, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that murders and sectarian killings in Baghdad have increased slightly this month after falling sharply in recent months: from 1,400 in January to 800 in February to roughly 500 in both March and April.

"This month is a little bit higher, maybe about 20 or 30 higher than it was at this time last month," he told reporters at the Pentagon, noting that "it's very difficult to parse out which death is caused by what kind of activity."

"Clearly the overall violence levels are down," he said, although he noted that a large bombing, for example, could inflate the death toll for one particular month.

Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 45 people were killed and 53 wounded in other suicide attacks, mortar strikes, roadside bombings and disparate violence on Thursday, according to law enforcement officials and news agencies.

Special correspondent Saad al-Izzi in Baghdad and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.