Full Coverages>World>Iraq Beyond War
       
     

    Suicide bombing kills up to 53
    By (Agencies)
    Updated: 2004-02-11 08:41

    A suicide bomber blew up a truckload of explosives Tuesday outside a police station south of Baghdad, killing up to 53 people and wounding scores — including would-be Iraqi recruits lined up to apply for jobs.

    The explosion reduced parts of the station to rubble and damaged nearby buildings. The street in front of the station was littered with the wreckage of shattered vehicles as well as pieces of glass, bricks, mangled steel and pieces of clothing.

    "It was the day for applying for new recruits," said policeman Wissam Abdul-Karim, who was thrown to the ground by the blast. "There were dozens of them waiting outside the police station."

    An Iraqi woman stands next to the bodies in front of the city morgue, following a suicide bomb attack in the town of Iskandariya, Iraq February 10, 2004.[Reuters]
    It was at least the eighth vehicle bombing in Iraq this year and followed warnings from occupation officials that insurgents would step up attacks against Iraqis who work with the U.S.-led coalition, especially ahead of the planned June 30 transfer of sovereignty to a provisional Iraqi government.

    The blast in this predominantly Shiite Muslim city followed the disclosure Monday of a letter from an anti-American operative to al-Qaida's leadership asking for help in launching attacks against the Shiites to undermine the U.S.-run coalition and the future Iraqi government.

    Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters Tuesday in Washington that the attack appears generally in line with plans outlined in the letter. Attacks on Iraqi security personnel have not deterred more from wanting to join, Rumsfeld said.

    "We find people are still lining up, volunteering, interested in participating and serving," he said.

    But many angry townspeople blamed the Americans for the blast, and some claimed that a U.S. air attack was to blame.

    "This missile was fired from a U.S. aircraft," said Hadi Mohy Ali, 60. "The Americans want to tear our unity apart."

    Iraqi police had to fire weapons in the air to disperse dozens of Iraqis who stormed the shattered remains of the station hours after the explosion.

    No U.S. or other coalition forces were hurt, said Lt. Col. Dan Williams, a military spokesman in Baghdad.

    The Iraqi Interior Ministry and the local police chief said the bombing was carried out by a suicide driver who detonated a red pickup truck at razor wire and sandbagged security barricades in front of the station.

    However, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said it was unclear whether the bombing here was the work of a suicide driver or whether the vehicle was parked and then detonated.

    Casualty figures varied.

    The U.S. military command reported 35 dead and 75 wounded but said those figures could be low since Iraqi authorities were handling the investigation. The Iraqi Interior Ministry said 40 to 50 people were killed and up to 100 wounded, including four policemen.

    However, a local hospital director, Razaq Jabbar, put the number at 53 dead and 60 wounded — all believed to be Iraqis.

    "This figure might increase," he said. "There were some body parts that haven't been identified yet. Some more bodies may be trapped under the rubble."

    Insurgents have mounted a string of car and suicide bombings in recent weeks. The deadliest so far has been in the northern city of Irbil on Feb. 1 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up at two Kurdish party offices celebrating a Muslim holiday, killing at least 109 people.

    On Jan. 18, a suicide car bomb exploded near the main gate to the U.S.-led coalition's headquarters in Baghdad, killing at least 31 people.

    No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's bombing, but Kimmitt said the attack "does show many" of al-Qaida's "fingerprints," including the size of the bomb — which he estimated at 500 pounds — and the large number of civilian casualties.

    In Baghdad, however, Iraqi police Lt. Gen. Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim said the engine number of the pickup indicated it once belonged to an intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein's regime.

    On Monday, U.S. officials said a letter seized last month from an al-Qaida courier asked the terrorist leadership to help foment civil war between Shiite and Sunni Muslims to undermine the coalition and the future Iraqi leadership.

    The purported author of the letter was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Palestinian-Jordanian suspected of al-Qaida links and believed at large in Iraq. The author boasted of having organized 25 suicide attacks in this country.

    U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer released the al-Zarqawi letter to Iraq's Governing Council on Tuesday and said they planned to release it to the Iraqi public.

    "It's to inform Iraqi leaders so they can help protect against the ethnic warfare that Zarqawi wants to provoke," said coalition spokesman Dan Senor, and "so ethnic leaders won't be provoked into reprisals."

    Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Washington that of the letter is authentic, it showed al-Qaida involvement in Iraq but also revealed how desperate the group had become.

    "I think the obvious points from it are, one is that the coalition and Iraqis themselves are being very successful, because one of the things they discussed in the letter is a desperate tactic of trying to get Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence," Myers said.

    However, many townspeople here blamed the Americans for the attack Tuesday.

    Dozens of people stormed the wrecked police station late Tuesday but scattered when police fired in the air. They chanted: "No, no to America! The police are traitors; not Sunnis, not Shiites! This crime was by the Americans!"

    The rumors, which local Iraqi officials dismissed out of hand, underscore the deep distrust between many Iraqis and the American occupation force nearly a year after the collapse of Saddam's regime.

    Abbas Hassan, 31, said the Americans hand out applications for the police force every day but "today, they didn't. It was all arranged by the Americans."

    Saleh, the police commander, said the rumors about the Americans were "an excuse" to draw attention away from "the real terrorists."

    "This is terrorism that targeted the people and the police," he said.

     
      Story Tools  
       
     
         
    国产V片在线播放免费无码| 东京热人妻无码一区二区av| 中文字幕在线无码一区| 国产亚洲?V无码?V男人的天堂 | 成人无码AV一区二区| 亚洲乱码中文字幕久久孕妇黑人| 无码av最新无码av专区| 中文字幕日韩欧美一区二区| 精品久久久无码人妻中文字幕| 精品欧洲AV无码一区二区男男 | 欧美无乱码久久久免费午夜一区二区三区中文字幕 | 蜜臀精品无码AV在线播放| 午夜福利av无码一区二区| 在线亚洲欧美中文精品| 亚洲精品无码永久中文字幕| 亚洲一级特黄无码片| 2024最新热播日韩无码| 色噜噜综合亚洲av中文无码| 亚洲中文字幕无码不卡电影| 中文无码vs无码人妻| 狠狠精品久久久无码中文字幕 | 中文字幕一区二区三区精彩视频| 国产在线观看无码免费视频| 精品久久久久久无码专区| 亚洲精品~无码抽插| 国产成人无码区免费内射一片色欲| 青娱乐在线国产中文字幕免費資訊 | 亚洲成av人片在线观看无码不卡| 无码不卡av东京热毛片| 无码国产精品一区二区免费| 日韩欧美成人免费中文字幕| 中文字幕一二三区| 中文字幕久久亚洲一区| 日韩人妻无码一区二区三区久久99| 国产精品综合专区中文字幕免费播放| 天堂а√在线中文在线最新版 | 中文字幕无码精品三级在线电影| 亚洲成A∨人片天堂网无码| 久久精品中文字幕一区| 无码人妻少妇久久中文字幕蜜桃| 亚洲AV无码久久|