Fireballs kill dozens of Iraqi army recruits

BAGHDAD— After the explosions and fireballs consumed dozens of fellow Iraqi army recruits in Baquba yesterday, a dazed Fawad Hamid found himself on a stretcher at a hospital, his chest perforated by ball bearings from explosive belts worn by the two teenage attackers.

He glimpsed a hospital orderly, who grasped a human head.

“Who knows whose head this is?” the orderly asked.
Hamid already had lost his father to an insurgent’s bullet, and his home to an insurgent’s bomb. Yesterday morning, Hamid, a 26-year-old father of three, drove to an Iraqi army recruiting center in Baquba.

He arrived just as the two suicide bombers blew themselves up, sending iron ball bearings tearing through scores of young recruits like Hamid, killing 33 people and wounding 69.

It was the bloodiest attack in three months in Diyala, the most dangerous province in Iraq, and it seemed calculated to intimidate Iraqi soldiers preparing to launch the fourth major offensive since last year to drive Sunni guerrillas from the province’s lush palm groves. ...