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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Car bombs kill at least 49 |
| 2004-12-19 |
| CAR bombs rocked Iraq's two holiest Shiite cities today, killing at least 49 people and wounding more than 95, while in downtown Baghdad dozens of gunmen carried out a brazen ambush that killed three Iraqi employees of the organisation running next month's elections. The bombings came just over an hour apart. First, a suicide blast ripped through minibuses at the entrance of the main bus station in Karbala. Then a car bomb went off in a central square of Najaf crowded with people watching a funeral procession that was also attended by the city police chief and provincial governor. The violence was the latest in an insurgent campaign to disrupt the crucial January 30 elections, the first national polls since the fall of Saddam Hussein. While many have feared that voting in the Sunni areas of northern and central Iraq will be hampered - if not impossible - because of the spiralling violence, today's attacks highlighted that even the strongholds of Iraq's Shiite majority in the south are vulnerable. Shiites have been strong supporters of the elections, which they are likely to dominate. The Najaf car bomb detonated in central Maidan Square, where a large crowd of people had gathered for the funeral procession of a tribal sheikh - about 100 meters from where Governor Adnan al-Zurufi and police chief Ghalib al-Jazaari were standing. Youssef Munim, head of the statistics department at Najaf's al-Hakim Hospital, said 36 people were killed by the explosion and 65 were wounded. "A car bomb exploded near us," Zurufi said. "I saw about 10 people killed." Jazaari believed he and Zurufi were the targets of the attack, in which three explosives went off about 2.45pm. Both men were unhurt. "As I and the governor were waiting for the funeral processions, three explosions occurred," al-Jazaari said. "We were targeted." It was not immediately clear what the other explosions were from. Residents were pulling bodies of the dead from damaged shops at the square, which is about 400 meters from the Imam Ali Shrine, the holiest Shiite site in Iraq. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #16 I'm not a history buff, but I seem to remember that in the Wild West it was against the law to not be packing a pistol or rifle. And, the Sheriff could deputize any number of people for any length of time to chase down bad guys. Trials were short, sweet and to the point. Appeals, of course, were always an option -- but never stayed execution. Certain areas (where enough law officers existed to keep the public peace) were off limits to any weapons -- you checked them as you entered town, unless you had a death wish. It is probably not an optimal environment, but it has to be better than what the Iraqis are looking at right now. After enough bad guys are killed, the society can get more civilized. It seemed to work for the Wild West. |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-12-19 6:28:59 PM |
| #15 And an unarmed populace doesn't even have that choice. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-19 6:20:32 PM |
| #14 the populace either picks up the slack or accepts domination That's precisely what I was thinking. They really don't have any other option. It is sink or swim . . . |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-12-19 6:18:40 PM |
| #13 Hence the body count, eh? |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-19 6:17:52 PM |
| #12 If you think a moose limb is going to cap another moose limb your dreaming. allen forbids it. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-12-19 6:16:39 PM |
| #11 cingold - I believe you are precisely right - hence my take on vigilante-style justice awhile back. Where the law is too timid, outmatched by numbers / firepower, biased or bought - the populace either picks up the slack or accepts domination. We shall see which sort of people the Iraqis are in those few areas where other forms of "social control" (tribalism, clans, etc) have broken down or are missing (non-homogenous) or have been usurped by jihadis. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-19 6:15:57 PM |
| #10 James, I think you are right. But, it doesn't look like these people are carrying when they leave the house. If they were carrying, the Iraqis would be capping these bad guys when they raise theri ugly heads. I'm thinking that if the place is going to be like the Wild West they need some Wild West style justice . . . |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-12-19 6:00:33 PM |
| #9 ex-lib: I thought the current rules allowed each household an AK47 already. |
| Posted by: James 2004-12-19 3:42:18 PM |
| #8 oops, #7 was me. |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-12-19 2:58:49 PM |
| #7 My wife (quite articulately, I might add ;) ) thinks this is naive proposal -- but, why not arm the populace? It seems to me that that the _only_ way to deal with the type of insurgency we are facing in Iraq is to ARM EVERYONE. If the populace sees somebody parking a car bomb -- cap ‘em. If the populace sees an ambush in progress -- cap ‘em. If insurgents are moving toward an army base -- cap ‘em. If they come across a hostage situation -- cap ‘em. Idk. Comments, anyone? |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2004-12-19 2:57:55 PM |
| #6 The Sunni baathists have already lost. They are just determined to take a few more with them on their way out. |
| Posted by: 2b 2004-12-19 2:17:10 PM |
| #5 Zarqawi and friends are trying to start a civil war. They are desparate. They lost their Fallujah base. They are getting squeezed. They have everything to lose now. The stakes for both sides are very high. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-12-19 1:51:05 PM |
| #4 Cheaderhead - the civil war has been going on for a few months now. The Sunni are clearly the bad guys - by default we are aligned with the Shia. |
| Posted by: JP 2004-12-19 12:31:28 PM |
| #3 It's not a civil war. It's the death rattle of the ba'athists and Zarqawi |
| Posted by: lex 2004-12-19 11:57:07 AM |
| #2 My nasty side is saying let them kill each other off, and then finish off any winner we don't like. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2004-12-19 11:24:51 AM |
| #1 Is it just me or we seeing a civil war in Iraq between the Sunni and Shia with our guys stuck in the middle. |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2004-12-19 11:19:47 AM |