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| Iraq |
| 6 dead at Baghdad bus stop bombing |
| 2005-09-25 |
| An attacker detonated an explosive belt at a crowded bus stop in central Baghdad on Friday and killed six people, the latest bloodshed in what American officials have predicted will be a period of heightened violence before the national constitutional referendum in three weeks. Insurgents also killed three American soldiers, including two near the restive provincial capital of Ramadi, where insurgents and American forces have fought intense skirmishes recently. The suicide attack in central Baghdad happened around noon about a half-mile east of one of the main bridges over the Tigris River, an official with the Interior Ministry said. The attack, which also wounded 12 people, struck a site where workers gather to catch minibuses that shuttle around the city. The buses mostly run to Sadr City, the huge Shiite neighborhood in northeast Baghdad, and to other largely Shiite areas of eastern Baghdad, which strongly suggested that the blast was specifically intended to kill Shiites. The leader of the terrorist group al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has called for a war against Shiites, who have become the favored targets of the Sunni-led insurgency as well. Heavy fighting was reported in Ramadi, about 60 miles west of the capital. A police captain there, Nasir al-Alousi, told the Associated Press that American forces had airlifted military equipment into a stadium in Ramadi before dawn Friday and that periodic skirmishes near there and a nearby industrial area had continued until the afternoon. The AP also quoted a doctor at the Ramadi hospital as saying that two people had been killed and eight others wounded in the clashes. Small-arms fire in Ramadi on Thursday killed one American soldier, the military said. Near Taqaddum, east of Ramadi, another U.S. soldier was killed and one more was wounded when insurgents detonated a large roadside bomb near the soldiers' patrol, the military said. Another roadside bomb southeast of the capital killed a third soldier Friday evening, the military said. In Baghdad, an official with the Interior Ministry said that a member of the committee charged with ensuring that former senior members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party are kept from influential roles in the new Iraqi establishment was killed Thursday night in the Shurta neighborhood of western Baghdad. A midlevel Interior Ministry official was also assassinated, the official said. Suicide bombers struck at least twice in southern Iraq. One killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded three others in an early afternoon attack on a checkpoint near Hilla, the Interior Ministry said. Another suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint north of Karbala on Friday night, killing a child and wounding four people, including two policemen. In Fallujah, an Iraqi man arrested at an American military checkpoint Sept. 20 was shot and killed by a Marine while in detention. The Marines said that after the man had been arrested for suspected terrorist activities, he had attacked a guard while being brought to a screening room for questioning. The guard shot him once in the chest with a handgun, the Marines said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |