More bombs hit Baghdad as toll in suicide blast rises

More bombs hit Baghdad as toll in suicide blast rises
copyright by The International Herald Tribune, Reuters, and The Associated Press
Published: July 8, 2007


BAGHDAD: A flurry of bombings in Baghdad killed 26 people Sunday, while officials said the death toll from a giant suicide truck blast that devastated the market of a Shiite town a day earlier was at least 130.

The explosives-laden truck demolished dozens of houses and shops Saturday in Amerli, a village of poor Shiite Turkmen about 110 kilometers, or 70 miles, north of Baquba, the largest city in Diyala Province. The police said that, in addition to the dead, at least 240 people had been wounded in the blast - one of the deadliest single attacks since the start of the war.

The blast added to fears that insurgents who had fled military operations in Baghdad and Diyala were turning to more vulnerable targets nearby.

The string of attacks Sunday in Baghdad made clear that extremists can still unleash organized strikes in the capital despite a relative lull in violence there in past weeks amid U.S. offensives.

Two car bombs detonated nearly simultaneously in the mostly Shiite Karrada district of Baghdad, killing eight people. The first hit at 10:30 a.m. near a closed restaurant, destroying stalls and soft drink stands. Two passers-by were killed and eight wounded, a police official said. The area is near the offices of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, the biggest Shiite party in Parliament, and is believed to be among the most protected parts of the city.

About five minutes later, the second car exploded about two kilometers away, hitting shops selling leather jackets and shoes. Six people were killed and seven were wounded, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

On the southwestern outskirts of Baghdad, a bomb hit a truckload of newly recruited Iraqi soldiers being brought into the capital to join the crackdown, killing 15 and wounding 20, a police official at a nearby police station said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

Also, a bomb hidden under a car went off at the entrance of the Shorja market - a central Baghdad market that has been hit repeatedly by insurgents - killing three civilians and wounding five, the police said.

Residents of Amerli buried about 70 of the dead Sunday. Mourners flowed into mosques and funeral tents set up along the main street of the town, where black banners were hung on the walls with names of the dead.

Iraqi Army and police forces were out in increased numbers in the streets and closed off entrances to the town to prevent attacks on the funerals - a frequent target of Sunni insurgents, said Abbas Mohammed Amin, police chief of the nearby city of Tuz Khurmato.

The toll from the attack in the farming town of 26,000 was still not clear Sunday. Amin estimated the toll at 150 dead, while Abbas al-Bayati, a Shiite Turkmen lawmaker, said 130 had been killed.

Abdullah Jabara, deputy governor of Salahuddin Province where the town is located, said that nearly three-quarters of the dead were women, children and elderly people. "I saw children from my neighborhood burning," said Zain al-Abadeen Abdul Hussein, a shop owner burned on his right arm and left leg.

Bayati sharply criticized the security situation in the town, saying its police force had only 30 members and that the Interior Ministry had responded to requests for more only two days before the attack. He said the authorities should help residents "arm themselves" to protect them if the security forces cannot.

He said an Iraqi Army battalion had been moved out of the Amerli region to Baghdad this year to help in the crackdown in the capital. A Defense Ministry spokesman, Major General Mohammed al-Askari, denied that, saying the 4th Division of the army was in the area.

"The number of Iraqi police and army in this area is too low," Haytham Khalaf, 37, a resident of Amerli whose niece was wounded in the blast, said. "This is a farming area with a lot of empty areas, so it's neglected. There's not even much presence of government officials." He accused local Sunnis of helping Al Qaeda set up a presence there.

In other violence, the U.S. military announced Sunday that an American soldier was killed in combat a day earlier in Salahuddin Province. It did not provide details.

The U.S. military also reported Saturday the deaths of nine soldiers and marines on Thursday and Friday, eight during combat or from roadside bombs.

A military spokesman said on Sunday that a British soldier died on Saturday from wounds received during a fierce clash in the southern Iraqi city of Basra the day before.

Iranian diplomats, meanwhile, made their first visit to five Iranians that the U.S. authorities are holding on suspicion that they were training militants there, the U.S. military said Sunday.

The Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari. said he hoped the visit Saturday to the detainees, who have been held since January, would help ease tensions between Iran and the United States.

Also on Saturday, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki called for the organization led by the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to confront its rogue members and "make conclusive and clear decisions, so as not to be held responsible for those using its name in killings, terrorism and other unlawful actions."