Insurgents Strike Iraqi Police With Ambulance Bomb

A suicide bomber blew up an ambulance filled with explosives outside a police headquarters in Diyala Province today, in the latest in a string of insurgent attacks. The bomb killed five and wounded 76, leaving a seven-foot-wide crater in its wake. “We felt that life was over and it was Judgment Day. Everything collapsed,” one man who was inside the building tells the New York Times, describing the blast as a “death storm.”

Police got reports two weeks ago that there were four vehicles equipped with explosives in the city, but they still weren’t able to stop the attack, one officer said. “What happened today shows that security measures were not good.” In an unrelated incident, a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of Shiite pilgrims, killing the vice president of Diyala’s provincial council. The incidents continue what the Times describes as a “steady trickle” of attacks, targeting mostly security forces, government officials, and Christians. Yesterday, for example, saw this especially deadly bombing. (More Iraq stories.)