At least 37 people died in bombings and shootings in the Iraqi capital on Sunday a day after a massive blast tore through a Baghdad market, killing 135 people in the second worst attack since the March 2003 invasion. The US military, meanwhile, revealed that four helicopters, which crashed in the past two weeks, were shot down by rebels, killing 20 people in all. The US military also said on Sunday that two of its soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol south of Baghdad. Their unit “was conducting an assessment of battle positions in the area when the roadside bomb detonated, killing the two soldiers and wounding another,” a statement said. The deaths bring to 3,093 the military’s losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. In addition to the 37 people killed in Baghdad attacks on Sunday, 33 corpses were found across the city and seven more people were reported killed elsewhere in Iraq.
SundayÂ’s attacks, which followed a week of bombings in the capital, came ahead of a massive security operation by a combined US-Iraqi force aimed at stabilising the violence-wracked city. In one incident a car bomb exploded near a bus station killing four people and wounding seven, and a roadside bomb left four policemen dead and four wounded. Towards nightfall a salvo of mortar shells slammed into BaghdadÂ’s Adhamiyah district, killing 15 people and wounding 56, a medical source said.
The latest round of reprisals came after a massive truck bomb exploded on Saturday in the Sadiriya district of central Baghdad. Angry residents of Sadiriya on Sunday vented their fury on Iraqi leaders and security forces.
The government blamed militants infiltrating from neighbouring Syria, with which Iraq restored diplomatic relations only late last year. In Damascus, an official source slammed Dabbagh’s comments as “contrary to reality and aimed at harming relations between Iraq and Syria that Damascus wants to strengthen and develop”.
The US military acknowledged, meanwhile, that four crashed helicopters had been shot down. Major General William Caldwell said it appeared as if the aircraft had taken “some kind of anti-aircraft ground fire”.
American officers said on Sunday a US-Iraqi campaign to stabilise Baghdad would begin soon and the offensive against militants would be on a scale never seen during four years of war. Briefing a small group of foreign reporters, three American colonels, who are senior advisers to the Iraqi army and police in Baghdad, said a command centre overseeing the crackdown would be activated on Monday. “The expectation is the plan will be implemented soon thereafter,” Colonel Doug Heckman, senior adviser to the 9th Iraqi Army division, said at a US military base in Baghdad. “It’s going to be an operation unlike anything this city has seen. It’s a multiple order magnitude of difference, not just a 30 percent, I mean a couple hundred percent,” he added, referring to previous offensives that failed to stem bloodshed.
Asked if the Mehdi Army’s stronghold in Sadr City would be cleaned out, Heckman acknowledged the political sensitivity but said all options were open. “If we feel we need to clear Sadr City to bring stability, we will do that. Are there restrictions that will not allow us to do that? Right now there are not,” Heckman said.
The Baghdad command centre that will begin operations on Monday will be headed by an Iraqi general. However, US troops will not take orders from Iraqi officers. But Major General William Caldwell, US military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters that the Iraqi security plan seen as a last-ditch attempt to halt violence in Baghdad would not produce results overnight. “It is important to acknowledge that it will not turn the security situation overnight. “People must be patient. Give the government and coalition forces a chance to fully implement it. It will take some time for additional Iraqi and US forces to be deployed.” Iraqi officials angered by the truck bomb urged the government on Sunday to take swift action by launching a major security plan promised by the prime minister in January.