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Four bombings kill 31 after Baghdad's deadliest day
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-15 17:17
Two suicide car bombers struck within a minute of each other and just a
kilometer (half mile) apart in south Baghdad shortly before noon Thursday,
killing at least seven policemen and raising the day's bombing death toll in the
capital to at least 31, police said.
Earlier Thursday, the day's first suicide car bombing killed sixteen
policemen and five civilians in the same neighborhood, signaling a new round
bomb violence one day after residents suffered through Baghdad's bloodiest day
of the war.
Three civilians were killed when a roadside bomb struck a Ministry of
Industry bus in eastern Baghdad. Thirteen were injured in the attack, said
police Lt. Col. Ahmed Abbod.
Al-Qaida in Iraq said it launched the Wednesday attacks. There was no
immediate claim for the Thursday bombings.
Al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly declared
"all-out war" on Shiites, Iraqi troops and the government in an audiotape posted
Wednesday on an Internet site known for carrying extremist Islamic content.
U.S. forces and insurgents, meanwhile, reportedly clashed in the troubled
western town of Ramadi, a militant stronghold on the main road to neighboring
Jordan. A Web posting purportedly from Al-Qaida in Iraq said its forces had
engaged the American military in the predominantly Sunni city of about 800,000.
On Wednesday, more than a dozen coordinated bombings ripped through Baghdad,
killing 160 people and wounding 570. Many of the victims were day laborers lured
by a suicide attacker posing as an employer.
In claiming it carried out the Wednesday attacks, Al-Qaida said it was taking
retaliation for the rout of militants from their base in Tal Afar, the northern
city near the Syrian border.
The Thursday in the capital began at 8 a.m. Four hours later the twin bombing
boomed out across Baghdad.
"The was just one minute and one kilometer between the two car bombs," said
police Capt. Firas Gaiti said. He said at least seven policemen died and 10 were
wounded.
In the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of
Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb next to a passing patrol, killing
two police officers and wounding four, said Col. Anwar Hassan, head of the local
security unit.
U.S. and Iraqi troops in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 115 kilometers (70
miles) west of Baghdad, came under mortar attack Thursday morning as armed
militants roamed the streets, police Capt. Nasir Alusi said.
All shops in the town _ a major insurgent stronghold _ were closed and the
streets were empty as automatic gunfire echoed through the town's industrial
zone, Alusi said.
Wednesday's spasm of violence terrorized the capital for more than nine
hours. The first attack, at 6:30 a.m., was the deadliest: a suicide car blast
which tore through the predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Kazimiyah.
In what was believed to be a new tactic, the bomber set off the explosive
after calling the construction and other workers to his small van and enticing
them with promises of employment, a witness said. At least 112 people were
killed and more than 200 were wounded, according to Health Ministry officials.
Twisted hulks of vehicles blocked the bloodstained main street in Kazimiyah's
Oruba Square.
The al-Zarqawi tape Wednesday was a clear attempt, coming on the heels of the
attacks, to create a climate of fear, sow deeper sectarian discord and scare
Iraqis away from the October 15 referendum on a new constitution.
Iraqi forces arrested two insurgents in connection with the Kazimiyah
bombing, one of them a Palestinian and the other a Libyan, Iraqi television
quoted Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as saying. Al-Jaafari also said the
suicide bomber was a Syrian, without offering any details how the identification
was made so quickly.
The bloodshed came as U.S. and Iraqi forces pressed their offensive against
insurgents in the northern city of Tal Afar and along the Euphrates River
valley, striking hard at what officials have said were militants sneaking across
the border from Syria.
Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a Web posting that it launched the attacks, some
less than 10 minutes apart, in response to the Tal Afar offensive, which began
Saturday.
"To the nation of Islam, we give you the good news that the battles of
revenge for the Sunni people of Tal Afar began yesterday," said the al-Qaida
statement posted on a militant Web site. Its authenticity could not be
confirmed.
The audiotape was posted later Wednesday. The speaker, introduced as
al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, said his militant forces would attack any Iraqi they
believe has cooperated with the Tal Afar offensive.
"If proven that any of (Iraq's) national guards, police or army are agents of
the Crusaders, they will be killed and his house will demolished or burned _
after evacuating all women and children _ as a punishment," the speaker said.
A spokesman for the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars
condemned Zarqawi's threats, and said he was trying to foment civil war between
Sunnis and Shiites.
"Zarqawi speaks from the position of revenge," Muhammed Bashar Faidi, a
spokesman for the group, said on Al-Arabiya television on Thursday. "This
position by Zarqawi is aimed at provoking sectarian war (but) if he wants a war
he should fight the occupation forces and not innocents."
In addition Wednesday, attackers killed 17 men _ including Iraqi drivers and
construction workers for the U.S. military _ in a Sunni village north of Baghdad
before dawn. That raised the death toll in and around the capital Wednesday to
177. A senior Health Ministry official said 570 people were wounded in all.
At least six attacks targeted U.S. forces, Iraqi authorities said. The U.S.
military said there were four direct attacks on Americans, with 10 soldiers
wounded. No U.S. deaths were reported.
In other violence Thursday:
_A gunfight between insurgents and paramilitary police broke out in the
capital's southern neighborhood of Saydiya. One policeman was killed and another
wounded, a spokesman said.
_Police found the bodies of seven unidentified men in various parts of the
capital. All had their hands tied and were blindfolded.
_In northern Baghdad, police said they found the body of a policeman who had
been handcuffed and shot in the head.
_In Baqouba, one policeman was killed and three injured in separate attacks
by insurgents using mortars and small-arms fire.
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