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49 die in Iraq blasts; bombs kill 5 GIs
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-20 08:42
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber detonated his car in a crowd of Shiite
mourners north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 36 people and raising
the death toll in two days of attacks against Shiites to more than 120. Five
American soldiers died in roadside bombings.
A man is rushed
into a local hospital after being wounded by a suicide attacker who killed
at least 36 people and wounded 50 more in a Shiite funeral procession in
Abu Saida near Baqouba, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2005. The funeral was
attacked at sunset while dozens of people were offering condolences to
Raad Majid, the head of the municipal council in Abu Saida, for the death
of his uncle, police officials said. [AP] |
Earlier Saturday, a car bomb exploded in a crowd of shoppers at an outdoor
market in a mostly Shiite neighborhood on the southeast edge of Baghdad, killing
13 people and wounding about 20 others, police reported. Witnesses said they saw
a man park the car and walk away shortly before the blast.
In the north, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a suspected al-Qaida hideout in
Mosul and at least seven insurgents died — three committing suicide to prevent
capture, Iraqi authorities said. Four Iraqi policemen also were killed and 11
U.S. troops wounded, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.
The second suicide car bomb exploded late in the afternoon as mourners
offered condolences to Raad Majid, head of the municipal council in the village
of Abu Saida, over the death of his uncle. Abu Saida is near Baqouba, a
religiously mixed city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Police said about 50 people were injured. On Oct. 29, a bomb hidden in a
truck loaded with dates exploded in another Shiite community in the same area,
killing 30 people.
Ambulances streamed into the main hospital in Baqouba ferrying the wounded
from Saturday's blast; many were rushed directly into operating rooms where
doctors worked frantically to save them.
Hospital facilities were so crowded that dazed and bloodied survivors — many
with serious injuries — lay in agony on gurneys in the hallways because of the
surgery backlog. Doctors and nurses in blood-spattered white uniforms rushed
from gurney to gurney trying to determine who to treat first.
The five American soldiers — assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the
101st Airborne Division — died in a pair of roadside bombings near Beiji, 155
miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. command said in a statement. Five others from
the same unit were wounded.
Another soldier from the 101st died in a U.S. hospital in Germany of injuries
suffered two days ago when his vehicle was deliberately rammed by an Iraqi car
near Beiji, the U.S. command said Saturday.
At least 2,090 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began in
March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said police and
U.S. soldiers surrounded a house before dawn Saturday after reports that
al-Qaida in Iraq members were inside, said Brig. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri, a Mosul
police spokesman.
As a fierce gunbattle broke out, three insurgents detonated explosives and
killed themselves to avoid capture. Five more died fighting, while four police
officers also were killed. Al-Jubouri said officials were attempting to identify
the dead insurgents.
In Baghdad, the U.S. command confirmed the fire fight and said four U.S.
soldiers, nine Iraqi army troops and one policeman were killed. The U.S.
statement put the insurgent death toll at seven.
Since Friday, at least 125 Iraqi civilians have been killed in bombings and
suicide attacks. They include 76 people who died in near-simultaneous suicide
bombings at two Shiite mosques in Khanaqin along the Iranian border. Four people
have been arrested, including one who was believed to have been planning another
suicide attack, a security officer in Khanaqin said.
Attacks against Shiite civilians by Sunni religious extremists have occurred
throughout the Iraq conflict but spiked since last weekend when U.S. troops
found up to 173 detainees in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad.
Most of the detainees were believed to be Sunni Arabs, who dominate insurgent
ranks, and some showed signs of torture. Iraq's Shiite-led government promised
an investigation and punishment for anyone guilty of torture.
Elsewhere, masked gunmen killed five members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party
in a series of attacks Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, police said.
Three children were killed and one was wounded when mortar rounds fired at a
U.S. base about 50 miles south of Baghdad fell short of their target and struck
a house, police said.
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