Baghdad (Iraq): Bombs exploded on Sunday in Baghdad and the northern oil center of Kirkuk, killing more than 60 people, police said, and dramatically escalatig tension as the prime minister left for Washington for talks on reversing the country's slide toward civil war.
The blasts occurred as Iraqi forces and the US-led coalition mounted a major crackdown on the country's most feared Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, blamed by Sunnis for many of the sectarian kidnappings and killings, which threaten to tear the country apart.
The Baghdad bombing occurred when a suicide driver detonated a minivan in the Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City at the entrance to the Jameelah market, packed with shoppers and vendors on the first day of the Iraqi work week.
An Iraqi army statement said 34 people were killed and 73 were wounded. Eight more people were killed and 20 wounded when a second bomb exploded two hours later at a municipal government building in Sadr City, the Iraqi army said.
In Kirkuk, a car bomb detonated at midday near a courthouse in the city market district, killing 20, wounding more than 150 and triggering huge fires in wooden shops, according to police Brig. General Sarhat Qadir.
It was the fourth car bombing this month in Kirkuk, where tensions are rising among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen for control of the area's vast oil wealth.
Officials said the Kirkuk toll was so high because smoke from the fires triggered in the shops suffocated many people trapped in the narrow streets nearby. Others suffered burns when the car bomb ignited chemicals stored in some shops.
Streets were filled with the sounds of sirens, screams of terrified and injured survivors and the crackle of gunfire as police fired in the air to try to maintain order.
The scene at the hospital was gruesome, with many victims young and old bleeding from their wounds. Some lay on stretchers without medical attention.
The wave of bombings, shootings and sectarian killings has plunged Iraq's new unity government into a deep crisis only two months after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took office, pledging to pursue national reconciliation and to pave the way for a US military withdrawal.
Instead, the US military is planning to bolster its forces in Baghdad to cope with the security crisis.
Al-Maliki and a large delegation left Sunday for Washington, where he will meet President George W. Bush on Tuesday. Security is expected to dominate the talks.
In Sadr City, dazed and angry people milled about the car bombing site, many of them still reeling from the effects of an early morning raid against what the US military described as ''death squad'' members.
''We could not sleep because of the raid, and today we woke up with the explosion of the car bomb,'' one man told Associated Press Television without giving his name. ''How long is it going to be like this?''
Police searched through the wreckage of the car bomb for more victims and warned bystanders to leave or they would be arrested. An elderly man, his clothes soaked in blood, wept as he called out the name of a missing relative.
It was the second major car bombing in Sadr City this month. A blast July 1 killed 66 people, and set off a new wave of reprisal killings and kidnappings of Sunnis by Shiite extremists seeking revenge.
Key to ending the reprisal attacks is to rein in sectarian militias and death squads that US officials now say are a greater threat to Iraq than the Sunni insurgents who have been fighting the coalition since 2003. The Mahdi Army is believed to be the biggest Shiite militia.
Before dawn Sunday, Iraqi troops and US advisers raided Sadr City and the mostly Shiite district of Shula, US and Iraqi officials said. The sounds of explosions and bursts of automatic fire echoed through the heart of the capital.
Comments
0 comment