US Vice President-elect Joe Biden arrived in Baghdad on Monday for talks with leaders of Iraq, where the withdrawal of 140,000 American troops is seen as a major challenge facing the incoming US administration. He arrived hours after bombers unleashed a wave of attacks across the capital that mainly struck Iraqi security forces, killing at least seven people and wounding more than 30, a reminder of simmering instability despite better security.
The visit by the long-time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came at the end of a tour of south-west Asia that included stops in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Obama wants to send more troops as he withdraws from Iraq. The Delaware senator, who takes office with President-elect Barack Obama next week, met President Jalal Talabani at his Baghdad residence and was due to meet other officials as part of a senate delegation. No news conference was announced.
Biden is one of the few members of the US Senate with a high profile in Iraq, where he is known as the author of a 2006 plan to divide the country into self-governing Sunni, Shia and Kurdish enclaves. That plan angered and offended many Iraqi politicians, and was quietly put on the back burner as violence ebbed. Biden voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq but later become a critic of the war and the way President George W. Bush executed it.
Monday's attacks came within a few hours of each other during the morning rush hour, mostly in the form of roadside bombs near Iraqi army and police patrols. A bomb attached to a car, followed quickly by another blast, killed three people and wounded 10 in the New Baghdad district in the east of the capital, police said. A roadside bomb in the Yarmouk neighbourhood struck an Iraqi army lorry carrying ammunition. Three soldiers were charred to death inside the truck and four civilians were wounded.
Near Sha'ab stadium in eastern Baghdad a bomb struck a police patrol, wounding seven people including three policemen. In Ghazaliya district in western Baghdad a roadside bomb struck a police patrol wounding three policemen and a civilian. Another roadside bomb struck near a police patrol in central Baghdad's Karrada district, killing one civilian and wounding four policemen. Another in central Baghdad wounded four people. Iraq has become far less violent over the past 18 months, but militants still launch bomb attacks frequently targeting Iraqi civilians or the security forces.
US forces are increasingly taking a back seat to Iraqi troops under a new bilateral security deal that took effect at the beginning of this year and. That security deal calls for US combat troops to leave Iraqi cities by the middle of this year and for all troops to withdraw by the end of 2011. It was negotiated by the outgoing Bush administration, but is seen as compatible with Obama's plan to withdraw combat forces by mid-2010.