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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Baghdad suicide bombing kills 27 |
| 2005-07-13 |
| A suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle in a crowd of mostly children near U.S. troops in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 27 people and wounding at least 67, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. A duty policeman at Kindi Hospital said 25 bodies and 25 wounded had arrived there: "Most of them are children." One U.S. soldier was among those killed, and three were among the injured, U.S. forces said. Battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Farrell told Reuters his men had cordoned off an area of houses near a highway for security sweeps when the bomber drove up a side alley. The bomber failed to pierce the military cordon and detonated his vehicle in a crowd of children and adults nearby. "The scene was almost indescribable," he said. "People nearest the blast, some were literally obliterated on the scene. Multiple lacerations and traumatic amputations. At least nine people I saw were killed instantly in a most horrific fashion." Sergeant Major Dan Huell said he was knocked to the ground. "I jumped back up and ran to the blast site. Then you see all the screaming, hollering, injuries," he told Reuters. "The soldiers performed well ... The few that we could evacuate -- soldiers pulled them up, hand-carried a few of them. Little kids. Hand-carried into our vehicles. We got them treated." A Reuters reporter at Kindi hospital saw at least a dozen coffins loaded into cars at the morgue. "My son was lucky -- he was injured by a piece of shrapnel that lodged in his head. All the rest of his friends died," said Abu Mohammed, a grey bearded man in white robes. A Reuters Television cameraman at the scene said the vehicle blew up near houses, reducing three to rubble. Women in the street screamed in anger and sorrow near pools of blood.# "There can be no justification for the deliberate targeting of civilians -- much less children, who are our hope for the future," said U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric. "Nothing will be accomplished by today's killing of innocents." The incident was similar to a triple car bomb attack near an American convoy in September last year in which 41 people were killed, 34 of them children. U.S. forces say most suicide bombings are carried out by foreign Sunni Arab Islamists loyal to groups like al Qaeda's Iraq wing, led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Washington said overnight that its forces had captured a senior Zarqawi lieutenant for the city of Baghdad. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told PBS television Monday's capture of Abu Abd Al-Aziz, whom he called Zarqawi's "main leader in Baghdad", was "going to hurt that operation of Zarqawi's pretty significantly". Zarqawi's group confirmed Abu Abd al-Aziz was caught, but said in a Web statement that he was not a senior operative. "Every time they arrest wanted brothers, they claim that he is a senior leader. Our brother Abu Abd Al-Aziz, may God free him, is only responsible for one of the squadrons in Baghdad," it said, adding that he had been seriously injured in the raid. Suicide bombings, including car bombs and strikes by bombers on foot with explosive vests, have increased since the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government took power in April. On Sunday, a bomber wearing an explosive vest killed about 20 people at an army recruiting station in Baghdad. A week earlier another bomber killed a similar number at a police recruiting station. Police in Jalowla near the Iranian border said a blast that killed two people in a Sunni mosque there overnight may have been the result of a suicide bomber preparing an attack when his bomb blew up early. Mounting violence is dividing Iraq on ethnic and sectarian fault lines at a time when U.S. forces are hoping to withdraw without leaving behind civil war. While most victims of insurgent attacks are Shi'ites killed by Sunni bombers and gunmen, Sunnis say the mainly Shi'ite police respond by rounding up Sunni men and killing some. In the Sbaa Abkar district of northern Baghdad, an angry crowd of mourners carried three coffins through the streets. They said the dead were among a group of 13 or 14 men arrested by police on Monday and found dead in a Baghdad morgue on Tuesday evening, showing signs of beatings and torture. The Interior Ministry spokesman said the incident was being investigated, along with a separate incident that sparked demonstrations on Tuesday. In that incident, denounced by Sunni political groups, 12 Sunni building site labourers from the Zaidan village on the western outskirts of the capital were taken from a hospital by police and died, apparently suffocated in van parked in hot sun. Angry Shi'ites marched on Monday after a Shi'ite family of nine was murdered in their beds by gunmen. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 "There can be no justification for the deliberate targeting of civilians -- much less children, who are our hope for the future," said U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric. And there you have it kids, the Worthless UN Quote Of The Day. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-07-13 23:05 |
| #2 I was gonna hold my breath, waiting for the outpouring of Islamic outrage, MSM spewing and LLL howling....but then I decided I'd rather live. Nothing says better how subhuman our opponents in this worldwide struggle to maintain civilization are. I hope we are only forced to assume some of their tactics, but will not apologize for that necessity. Actions have consequences, and inactions do as well..... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-07-13 22:57 |
| #1 Go insurgents.... Yeah.... Down with Bush...... |
| Posted by: plainslow 2005-07-13 21:52 |