|
Home>News Center>World | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Bombs, gunmen kill over 150 in Baghdad
A suicide bomber lured a crowd of Shi'ite day labourers to his minivan and blew it up, killing 114 people and wounding more than 156 in Baghdad's old town on Wednesday, in Iraq's second deadliest bombing since the war began.
Iraq's al Qaeda claimed it was waging a nationwide suicide bombing campaign to avenge a military offensive on a rebel town. The bomber drew the men to his vehicle with promises of work before detonating the bomb, which contained up to 500 pounds (220 kg) of explosives, an Interior Ministry source said. Gunmen also killed 17 people in Taji, a northern suburb of the capital, while bombs exploded across Baghdad all morning. More than 150 people were killed in all the attacks, which police said appeared to have been carefully orchestrated. "It has been a hectic day with bombs exploding across Baghdad. It is highly likely that these attacks were coordinated," a police official told Reuters. A statement on an Islamist Web site often used by Iraq's al Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, did not mention any specific attack, but said its campaign was in reprisal for an offensive by U.S. and Iraqi forces against insurgents in the northern town of Tal Afar. "We would like to congratulate the Muslim nation and inform them the battle to avenge the Sunnis of Tal Afar has begun," it said. Fears of civil war have grown in the run-up to an October 15 referendum on a new constitution for Iraq. Most of the victims of Wednesday's attacks were Shi'ite Muslims. "We gathered and suddenly a car blew up and turned the area into fire and dust and darkness," said Hadi, one of the workers who survived the attack, which happened shortly after sunrise. Bodies lay in the street beside burned-out cars, witnesses said. Some used wooden carts to haul away the dead. Police said 114 people were killed and 156 wounded in the explosion. It was the deadliest attack since July, when 98 people were killed in a blast south of the capital. The most lethal bombing since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 was a suicide car bomb attack on February 28 this year, which killed 125 people in Hilla, south of Baghdad. "There's no political party here, there are no police," Mohammed Jabbar railed at the scene of the blast in the Khahimiya area. "This targeted civilians, innocents. Why women and children?" he added, as bystanders shouted, "Why? Why?" Earlier this month more than 1,000 people died in the same district in a stampede on a bridge, triggered by fears of a bomber in a crowd during a Shi'ite religious ceremony. At the nearby Kadhimiya hospital, overflowing with victims, dozens of the wounded screamed in agony as they were treated on the floor, some lying in pools of their own blood. One man had severe burns to his arms and legs, and another victim, shivering uncontrollably, lay bleeding unattended. Iraqi government officials have accused Sunni militants of attacking majority Shi'ites, who swept to power in January polls boycotted by most Sunnis, in a bid to spark a civil war. Another blast echoed over central Baghdad about two hours after the first. Two more car bombs exploded soon afterwards. Police said five people were killed and 24 wounded in one of the blasts, near the offices of a Shi'ite cleric. They said three policemen and three civilians were killed in a separate attack on a police convoy. Amid more explosions across the capital, a car bomber blew himself up in northern Baghdad, killing 11 people lined up to refill gas canisters, police said. Another 14 were wounded. Separately, gunmen dragged 17 people from their homes and killed them north of Baghdad early on Wednesday, police said. The gunmen had rounded up their victims in the middle of the night in Taji. All were shot in the head, and all were Shi'ite relatives from the same tribe, police said. TENSIONS OVER CONSTITUTION The October 15 vote has exacerbated tensions between the country's main communities, Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Sunnis, who account for 20 percent of the population, dominated Iraqi politics for decades, under Saddam Hussein and before, and resent their loss of influence since his removal from power by the U.S. invasion of March 2003. They fear the constitution will institutionalize their reduced role, by increasing autonomy for southern Shi'ites in line with the broad autonomy enjoyed by Kurds in the north, and by decentralizing control of oil revenues. The Iraqi army has been fighting Sunni rebels for days in Tal Afar, near the Syrian border, killing over 200 and capturing several hundred, according to Iraqi government reports. "Since the operation began, there have been dozens of terrorists killed, 341 detained and 22 weapons caches found," the U.S. military said in a statement on Wednesday. Late on Tuesday, U.S. aircraft launched strikes on targets in Karabila, another town near the Syrian border. Washington and Baghdad say insurgents smuggle fighters and arms across the border, which Iraq closed in places on Sunday. Syria denies it. (Additional reporting by Faris al-Mehdawi, Michael Georgy, Mussab Al-Kharailla, Yasser Faisal, Sebastian Alison; Writing by Sebastian Alison)
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
