Burnt vehicles are seen at the scene of a car bomb attack in Baghdad August 1, 2007. A suicide car bomb killed 15 people in a bustling commercial district close to a popular ice-cream parlour in central Baghdad on Wednesday, police said, leaving bodies strewn in the street and setting cars ablaze. REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen
Car bomb kills 17 in Baghdad
BAGHDAD (AP) — A parked car bomb killed 17 civilians and left a gaping crater in a busy square Wednesday in central Baghdad, police said.
Another 32 people were wounded by the blast, a police officer said on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.
DEATH TOLLS: July safer for U.S. troops, among deadliest for Iraqis
An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the explosion ripped a hole more than 3 feet deep and nearly 5 feet wide in the asphalt. Three minibuses and six cars were damaged by flames and flying debris. Blood pooled in the street.
A gas station and a nearby restaurant, which was closed at the time of the blast, also suffered damage.
The explosives had been planted in a vehicle in al-Hurriyah square in the mostly mixed Karradah neighborhood, and detonated around 10:15 a.m., the police officer said.
Thamir Sami, 33, was carrying clothes from his menswear shop out to his car when the explosion shook the area.
"Women and children were lining up near the gas station to get fuel ... I saw burnt bodies. Other motorists and I helped evacuate the wounded before the ambulances came," he said.
The bombing occurred nearly a week after a cluster of explosions, including one from a massive truck bomb, hit the same neighborhood. Karradah previously had been thought to be one of central Baghdad's safest areas. Last Thursday's blasts killed more than 60 people.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-08-01-iraq-violence_N.htm?csp=34
Violence Rages in Iraq as Sunni Bloc Leaves Cabinet
By JON ELSEN and STEPHEN FARRELL
Three bomb attacks in Baghdad today killed more than 65 people, as sectarian and militant violence continued to rage in Iraq.
The Shiite-led government that is trying to cope with the violence, meanwhile, suffered a political setback today, when the largest Sunni Arab political bloc in the parliament followed through on a threat to walk out of the coalition cabinet that is trying to unify the country.
One of the bombs detonated in Baghdad today was in a car outside a popular ice cream shop in the central district of Karrada. The explosion killed at least 15 people and injured more than 35. Another attack in the neighborhood last week killed 60.
Aqeel Jassim, 18, a worker in the shop, said he was preparing ice cream ingredients when he heard a loud noise, and then saw flying steel and glass destroy the shop. “For minutes I was dizzy and my feet barely held me, then I saw my co-workers swimming in their blood and the whole place turned upside down,” he said.
“I think the explosion target was the shop customers who buy ice cream to cool themselves, because of this hot weather and because this neighborhood is safe to some extent, and, maybe, it is a Shiite neighborhood.”
That bomb went off in the morning. Several hours later, just before 2 p.m., a fuel tanker truck packed with explosives rammed a line of waiting cars at a filling station in Mansour. The resulting explosion sent a sheet of flames and black smoke 50 feet in the air, and could be heard miles away. At least 50 people were killed and 60 more were wounded in the attack, news agencies reported.
Sabah Ahmed Salim al-Shammari, 34, a police officer in Yarmuk, said he had put his jerry can in line at the gas station with about 60 others. “After several steps, I found myself flying in the air and falling down on my face, and at the same time I saw flames all over my body,” Mr. Shammari said. “My hands were severely burned and my face was slightly burned, and shrapnel injured both my legs.”
He said he was taken to the hospital, then transferred to another hospital that specializes in treating burn victims.
In the southern Baghdad district of Doura, a parked-car bomb killed three people and wounded five, Reuters reported, citing the police.
On Tuesday in Salahaddin Province, 18 men from Balad were abducted by gunmen, who had established fake checkpoints, the police said today. Those abducted were in three civilian cars coming from Baghdad; they were stopped by gunmen and forced out of their cars.
The area has been the site of many sectarian kidnappings and killings recently.
The Sunni Accordance Front, which has 44 of the parliament’s 275 seats, said it was withdrawing its five ministers from the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki because the prime minister has refused to respond to a list of demands, including a greater say in security policy.
The immediate impact of the move was blunted by its coming on the first day of the government’s widely criticized summer recess, when political activity slows down considerably. It also followed reports of increasing tensions within Mr. Maliki’s own party. The parliament is scheduled to resume its work on Sept. 4.
On Sept. 15, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, are due to submit a report on the benchmarks set by Congress to measure Iraq’s political progress.
In Baghdad, American military and political officials reacted guardedly to the Sunni bloc’s pullout.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, an American military spokesman, said United States forces would continue to try to create a safer environment for Iraqi politicians to do their work.
“We continue to keep our focus on the security side, with the full intent that progress there can increase the level of stability and could increase therefore some of the prospects for progress on the political side,” he said. “Would we like to see progress go faster? Sure, we would.”
Philip Reeker, a spokesman for the United States Embassy in Baghdad, said the recent increase in American troop strength, known as the surge, “has done what we wanted it to do in terms of bringing down levels of violence in Baghdad and Anbar, stabilizing populations and protecting populations — that has gone very well.” Mr. Reeker added, “The hardest part is taking advantage of these security gains to move the political process forward, both at the national and the local levels.”
He expressed hope that Iraqi leaders would work to resolve their disputes over the Iraqi parliament’s month-long August vacation.
Mr. Reeker said that Iraq’s internal divisions have been “deepened and sharpened,” not only by the violence of recent years, but by the preceding 35 years of Baathist oppression and terror.
“For them, these are existential issues,” he said. “These are things that Iraqi political leaders need to grapple with — they need to find mechanisms through which they can work together to compromise, to find accommodation, mechanisms of engagement.
“Is it frustrating? Absolutely. As Ambassador Crocker said, ‘It’s frustrating for us, it’s frustrating for them and it’s frustrating for the Iraqi people.’ ”
Employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Baghdad.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Car bombs kill dozens in Baghdad
Television grab of the blast near a petrol station in Baghdad
One blast happened in Baghdad's mainly Sunni district of Mansour
At least 67 people have been killed and almost 100 have been wounded in two separate bombings in Baghdad, Iraqi police have said.
In one attack, a fuel tanker exploded near a petrol station in the mainly Sunni suburb of Mansour, killing 50.
Earlier, at least 17 people were killed and 32 injured in a blast in the mainly Shia shopping district of Karrada.
Elsewhere, US officials said three of its troops had been killed, and the UK said a British soldier had died.
The Karrada bomb was placed in a parked vehicle and went off in an area with many electronics stores and a popular ice-cream parlour, reports say.
A car bomb in the same area killed 25 people last week.
Karrada has been hit by a string of bombs in the past 10 days. On Monday of last week, four separate car bombs killed 16 people.
US and Iraqi forces have tightened security in Baghdad since earlier in the year in an attempt to stem such bombings.
Sunni withdrawal
In other developments, the main Sunni Arab political bloc in Iraq, the Iraqi Accordance Front, has said it is withdrawing from the government.
Baghdad map
The group, which has six cabinet ministers, said the Shia-led administration had failed to meet a list of demands, including one urging tough action against Shia militias.
The Sunni leaders had also demanded a bigger say in security matters.
And Iraqi officials say more than 1,600 civilians were killed in July - an increase of about a third from the previous month.
The figure is also higher than the number of civilian deaths in February, when the US launched its so-called surge, which involved sending thousands more troops to Baghdad.
The US military says American casualties fell last month to their lowest level this year.
Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab bloc withdraws from government; Baghdad bombings kill 70
By Associated Press
Wednesday, August 1, 2007 - Updated: 12:44 PM EST
BAGHDAD - Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government Wednesday, undermining efforts to seek reconciliation among the country’s rival factions, and three bombings in Baghdad killed at least 70 people.
In one attack, 50 people were killed and 60 wounded when a suicide attacker exploded a fuel truck near a gas station in western Baghdad. Another 17 died in a separate car bomb attack in central Baghdad. And in a mostly Christian section of the capital, a parked car bombing killed three people.
The U.S. military announced the deaths of four American soldiers, three of whom were killed by a sophisticated, armor-piercing bomb. Britain also announced the death of one of its soldiers, by a roadside bombing in Basra.
The White House on Wednesday downplayed the significance of the Accordance Front’s leaving the government. Press secretary Tony Snow said that while it is important for all the political blocs to participate, reconciliation efforts are ongoing. He noted that Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and the minister of defense, both Sunnis, remain in place.
"We’re keeping an eye on the situation, but let’s keep in mind that it is not a complete withdrawal from the political process," Snow said.
The Accordance Front has 44 of parliament’s 275 seats. Its withdrawal from the 14-month-old government is the second such action by a faction of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s "national unity" coalition. Five Cabinet ministers loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr quit the government in April to protest al-Maliki’s reluctance to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Accordance Front, said at a news conference Wednesday that the Sunni bloc’s six Cabinet ministers would submit their resignations later in the day.
Al-Issawi said the decision to pull out from the government followed what he called al-Maliki’s failure to respond to the Accordance Front. It gave him seven days to meet its demands, and the ultimatum expired Wednesday.
Among the demands: a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias and the participation of all groups represented in the government in dealing with security issues.
"The government is continuing with its arrogance, refusing to change its stand and has slammed shut the door to any meaningful reforms necessary for saving Iraq," al-Issawi said.
"We had hoped that the government would respond to these demands or at least acknowledge the failure of its policies, which led Iraq to a level of misery it had not seen in modern history. But its stand did not surprise us at all," he said, reading from a prepared statement.
In all, at least 95 people were killed or found dead in Iraq.
The deadliest attack occurred when a a fuel tanker exploded near a gas station in western Baghdad’s primarily Sunni Mansour neighborhood, killing at least 50 people and wounding 60, police said. Two police officers, both speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said the explosion was the work of a suicide attacker.
Earlier, a parked car bomb killed 17 civilians and left a gaping crater in a busy square in central Baghdad, police said. Another 32 people were wounded by the blast, another police officer said on the same condition of anonymity.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the explosion ripped a hole five feet wide in the asphalt. Three minibuses and six cars were damaged by flames and flying debris. Blood pooled in the street.
A gas station and a popular ice cream parlor also suffered damage. Windows were shattered and benches lay toppled outside. Shrapnel scattered 200 meters from the blast.
The explosives had been in a vehicle in al-Hurriyah square in the mostly Shiite Karradah neighborhood, and detonated around 10:15 a.m., the police officer said.
The bombing occurred nearly a week after a cluster of explosions, including one from a massive truck bomb, hit the same neighborhood. Karradah had previously been thought to be one of central Baghdad’s safest areas. Last Thursday’s blasts killed more than 60 people.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a parked car bomb killed three people and wounded five in southern Baghdad. The attack occurred in the al-Athouriyn area of Dora, where most residents are Christian.
The U.S. military on Wednesday announced the deaths of three more soldiers, killed by a sophisticated, armor-piercing bomb in eastern Baghdad. An explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, detonated near the soldiers’ patrol during combat operations Tuesday, it said. Six other soldiers were wounded.
Another soldier was killed by small arms fire Tuesday in a separate incident, the military reported.
That brought to 77 the July toll of U.S. deaths in Iraq. It was the lowest monthly count in eight months, as the U.S. military said it was gaining control of former militant strongholds.
Still, it was the deadliest July for U.S. troops since the war began. For the previous three years, the month of July saw a relatively low death toll. In July 2006, 43 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq, and 54 died in each of the previous two Julys.
By contrast, July was the second-deadliest month for Iraqis so far this year, according to an Associated Press tally.
In other violence Wednesday, Iraqi police said a parked car bomb killed three people and wounded five in southern Baghdad in a mostly Christian area.
The U.S. military said its forces had killed three suspects and captured 27 others in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq on Tuesday and Wednesday.
© Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Baghdad Blasts Claim 200 Casualties
Baghdad, Aug 1 (Prensa Latina) The Iraqi capital neighborhoods of Al Mansour, Karrada and Al Doura were shaken on Wednesday with the detonations of three car bombs, which left more than 70 dead and 100 wounded.
According to Iraqi police, a fuel tanker truck packed with explosives rammed a line of waiting cars at a filling station in Mansour, taking the lives of at least 50 people and wounding 60 more.
Details on the attack are still unknown, but a US Army spokesperson did not rule out that some American and Iraqi soldiers were near the explosion scene.
A few hours earlier a bomb detonated in a car outside a popular ice cream shop in the central district of Karrada. The blast killed 20 people and injured 40.
A third bomb went off in the southern Baghdad district of Doura on Wednesday morning. Police said the parked-car bomb attack killed three people and wounded five.
sus ccs ajs mt
PL-26
Iraqis mill around the site where a parked car bomb killed 12 civilians and wounded 17 on Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007. Five cars were incinerated by the blast, which occurred in al-Hurriyah square in the Karradah neighborhood, where explosives had been planted in a vehicle, and were detonated around 10:15 a.m., police said. (AP Photo/ Khalid Mohammed)
Fuel bomb causes carnage in Baghdad
Top_news
By Agencies
The number of civilian deaths rose in July, six months after the US troop 'surge' began [AFP]
At least 50 people have been killed in western Baghdad after a suicide bomber detonated explosives packed to a fuel truck.
Another 60 people were injured in the attack on Wednesday in the Iraqi capital's Mansour district according to police.
It was the second deadly explosion in the city in a matter of hours.
Police reports said motorists were hit as they queued for petrol at the truck. Earlier reports had said the bomber had crashed into a line of vehicles.
Elsewhere in the capital on Wednesday at least 17 people were left dead when a parked car bomb exploded in the busy central district of Karrada.
Frequent target
Another 32 people were injured in the blast in the mainly Shia district which occurred near a petrol station and an ice-cream shop.
Karrada, on the eastern side of the Tigris river, is normally one of the more stable areas in the Iraqi capital, but has been the target of several bombs in the past 10 days.
A parked car bomb killed 25 people and wounded 115 last Thursday, three days after three separate bombs killed another 13 people in the same district.
The latest attacks in Baghdad come as new figurers show at least 1,652 civilians were killed in Iraq in July, one-third more than in the previous month.
According to figures compiled from three Iraqi ministries and seen by AFP news agency, July's toll is also slightly higher than the number for February, when the US launched a "surge" aimed at reducing sectarian violence in the country.
In that month, 1,626 civilians were killed according to the ministries' figures.
In June, 1,241 were killed, prompting hope that the troop reinforcements were having an effect, but July's figure represents a 33 per cent increase in the number of deaths.
Political reconciliation
Meanwhile, a senior US military official has said that while the deployment of US troops has improved security in Iraq to some degree, the country's future is jeopardised by the failure of Iraqi leaders to forge political reconciliation.
Navy Admiral Michael Mullen told a senate hearing that security on the ground in Iraq is "not great, but better".
But Mullen said the US military effort could succeed only if Iraqis struck a compromise to defuse sectarian divisions.
"Barring that, no amount of troops and no amount of time will make much of a difference," he said.
Mullen is expected to be approved as the most senior military adviser to George Bush, the US president.
Mullen also said that an early withdrawal of US troops could turn Iraq into a "cauldron".
A man walks past the site where a parked car bomb killed 12 civilians and wounded 17 on Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007. Five cars were incinerated by the blast, which occurred in al-Hurriyah square in the Karradah neighborhood, where explosives had been planted in a vehicle, and were detonated around 10:15 a.m., police said. (AP Photo/ Khalid Mohammed)
At least 68 Iraqis killed, 94 wounded in Baghdad blasts - Summary
Posted : Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:57:38 GMT
Author : DPA
Baghdad - At least 68 Iraqis were killed and 94 others wounded in two blasts in central and west Baghdad Wednesday in one of the worst days of violence in the history of the Iraq conflict. In the upper-middle class neighbourhood of Mansur in west Baghdad, at least 50 Iraqis were killed and 60 others injured when a bomb in a car parked in a line of vehicles at a fuel station near an oil tank went off, independent Voices of Iraq reported.
Also Wednesday, 18 Iraqis were killed and 34 others wounded as a result of a car bomb explosion close to a communications centre in the Hurriya square in Karrada neighbourhood in central Baghdad, an Iraqi police source said.
The explosion also caused damage to a number of nearby vehicles.
Both Mansur and Karrada districts have been witnessing recurrent attacks in the past few weeks.
Also Wednesday the US military in Iraq reported that three US soldiers were killed and six wounded when an explosive went off near their patrol during combat operations in east Baghdad Tuesday.
The independent Voices of Iraq news agency said Wednesday that kidnappers ambushed 18 civilians during the night on the main road as they were travelling home northwards from Baghdad.
Balad has become the scene of many tit-for-tat sectarian killings between Shiite militias and Sunni al-Qaeda terrorists.
Copyright © 2007 Respective Author
No comments:
Post a Comment