[Al Arabiya Latest] A suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and wounded 21 others on Thursday in Iraq's increasingly turbulent western Anbar province, a senior Iraqi army official and police said.The blast was the third major attack against the governorate building in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, since October and comes just weeks ahead of a March 7 nationwide poll.
A restaurant worker said that bodies littered the scene. "A suicide bomber...attacked the checkpoint of the police and army close to our restaurant. Some of them were killed. I saw around five or six bodies, and helped carry them to cars going to hospital," said restaurant worker Hamid Ali.
Once a safe-haven for Sunni Islamist insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda, the mainly Sunni province had been relatively calm after tribal leaders turned on militants there in 2007. However, a series of blasts in the desert province, Iraq's largest, in recent months has shattered the calm in the run up to a national vote next month. Sunni Muslims largely boycotted a parliamentary election in 2005, which helped fuel an insurgency, but many Sunni candidates plan to participate in the March vote.
Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq last week said it would use military means to derail the election because Iraq's majority Shiites, whom they consider heretics, are likely to lead Iraq's next government.