Truck bomb targets dam, bridge on Tigris

BAGHDAD -- A truck bomb parked on a bridge connecting two gates of the Mosul dam exploded Monday, killing a security officer, officials said.

The attack on the dam was the latest reminder of militants' intent to undermine major infrastructure projects in Iraq, and highlighted continued instability in northern Nineveh province. American military officials acknowledge that insurgents have sought shelter in the north after being driven out of Baghdad and other provinces by summer military offensives. The bombed bridge connects the right and left shores of the Tigris River and had been used by vehicles for the last three decades.

Reconstruction work on the Mosul dam, which was built in the 1980s, has been one of the major projects undertaken with the nearly $20 billion in funds that Congress approved for Iraqi reconstruction in 2003. The money was a one-time allotment, and only about $2 billion is left, making extra costs caused by security breaches especially troublesome, said a U.S. official involved in Iraqi reconstruction work.

Repairs are needed on the dam to keep water at a safe level behind the reservoir, the official said. U.S. engineers have expressed concern about the dam bursting, causing massive flooding.

Syrian trucks coming from the northern Iraqi border use the bridge to transport gas and other goods. U.S. forces and Iraqi security forces also use the bridge.

Elsewhere in Iraq, government officials and security forces said the transfer of control of Iraq's southern Babil province from U.S. forces to Iraqi authorities would be delayed indefinitely.

"No time and place have been decided yet," said Brig. Gen. Faris Jibouri, acting police chief in the capital, Hillah.

In November, a provincial government spokesman and a police spokesman told reporters in Hillah that Dec. 17 or 18 were possible dates for the hand-over. And on Monday, a member of Babil's provincial council said that Dec. 16 also had been considered as a possible transfer date.

But U.S. military officials in Baghdad said Monday that Babil was not scheduled "for provincial Iraqi control until June 2008," and only the transfer of Basra had been scheduled for December.

"December 16 was one of the possible dates to hand the Babil security file to the Iraqis," said Murtada Kamil, head of the legal committee of the provincial council. "However, the transfer didn't happen, not because the security forces in Babil are not ready, but rather the issue has to be decided between the central government and the U.S. forces."

On Monday, a bomb targeting a U.S. army convoy in Baghdad missed, instead hitting two civilian cars and killing two people, police said. Four others were injured.

Meanwhile, the presidency of Iraq's Parliament condemned Turkey's raids against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq on Sunday, saying that the Turkish planes that bombed several Iraqi villages killed many innocent people. U.S. officials in Baghdad would not comment on the Turkish airstrikes.