FT.com Home US Martial law threatened for Iraq:
"Iraq's incoming government is considering imposing martial law to help stabilise the country after another two car bomb attacks on Thursday killed at least 41 Iraqis.
The first bomb, packed with artillery shells, exploded outside an army recruiting centre in central Baghdad killing 35 people. The centre had been hit in a similar strike earlier this year. A second attack north of Baghdad killed another six Iraqi civil defence soldiers.
The blasts were the latest in a spate of increasingly well-organised attacks, including suicide attacks against foreign civilians working for the US-led coalition, an assassination of a senior Iraqi official, and the sabotage of military and industrial targets.
Co-ordinated strikes on Iraq's oil pipelines in the north and south of the country have reduced exports to a trickle and depleted the country's prime source of revenue.
The escalating violence has forced the new interim government of Ayad Allawi to consider assuming broader security powers in the aftermath of the June 30 transition.
'A decision to impose martial law could be taken if the attacks continue,' said Hazem Shaalan, the defence minister."
"Iraq's incoming government is considering imposing martial law to help stabilise the country after another two car bomb attacks on Thursday killed at least 41 Iraqis.
The first bomb, packed with artillery shells, exploded outside an army recruiting centre in central Baghdad killing 35 people. The centre had been hit in a similar strike earlier this year. A second attack north of Baghdad killed another six Iraqi civil defence soldiers.
The blasts were the latest in a spate of increasingly well-organised attacks, including suicide attacks against foreign civilians working for the US-led coalition, an assassination of a senior Iraqi official, and the sabotage of military and industrial targets.
Co-ordinated strikes on Iraq's oil pipelines in the north and south of the country have reduced exports to a trickle and depleted the country's prime source of revenue.
The escalating violence has forced the new interim government of Ayad Allawi to consider assuming broader security powers in the aftermath of the June 30 transition.
'A decision to impose martial law could be taken if the attacks continue,' said Hazem Shaalan, the defence minister."
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