Civilian wounded as IED destroys house in Baaquba

DIALA / IraqiNews.com: A civilian man was wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) blast targeted the house of a displaced local resident in central Baaquba city on Friday, an official security source in Diala said. “An IED planted by unidentified gunmen went off on Friday evening near a house that belongs to a displaced local resident in the area of al-Anafsa, central Baaquba, leaving one civilian wounded and the building totally devastated,” the source told IraqiNews.com. He did not give more details. According to security sources in the province of Diala, areas in the city of Baaquba have witnessed during recent week blasts by persons believed to belong to al-Qaeda network in Iraq targeting displaced families that returned to their original dwelling places. More than 27,000 families in Diala were forced to leave their homes due to sectarian violence. Only 2400 families of them returned after a relative improvement in security conditions in the province. Baaquba, the capital city of Diala, lies 57 km northeast of Baghdad. Diala province, a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian borders. It covers an area of 17,685 square kilometers (6,828 sq mi). In January 2008 Operation Phantom Phoenix was launched in an attempt to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda network following the Diala province campaign between 2006 and 2007. Later on, the Iraqi security forces had launched a wide-scale security campaign in Diala province. The operation, codenamed Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good), is aimed at tracking down members of al-Qaeda network in Diala, Iraq’s most restive city, after the armed group lost its strongholds in the western Iraq predominantly Sunni province of al-Anbar, where tribesmen fought its members and flushed them out of the city. A large portion of the province is drained by the Diala River, a major tributary of the Tigris. Because of its proximity to two major sources of water, Diala’s main industry is agriculture, primarily dates grown in large Date Palm groves. It is also recognized as the orange capital of the Middle East. AmR (S) 1