Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 21, 2009
BAGHDAD, May 20 -- A car bomb exploded Wednesday near a crowded ice cream parlor in a Shiite neighborhood of northern Baghdad, killing at least 34 people and wounding 72 in one of the deadliest attacks in weeks.
Iraqi security forces cordoned off the bombing site as ambulances, their sirens wailing, ferried the dead and wounded to nearby hospitals. Witnesses said people ran frantically from the scene, terrified that another bombing might follow.
"These are desperate attempts to divide the Iraqi people," said Hamdallah Ali Rikabi, a neighborhood official in a movement loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric whose followers once controlled the area. "But they have learned from their past."
A series of suicide bombings struck predominantly Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad last month, making April the most violent month this year and fueling speculation that Sunni insurgents might be trying to instigate the sort of sectarian conflict that plunged Iraq into chaos in 2006 and 2007.
Civilian casualties have mounted each month this year, as the United States prepares to withdraw combat troops from cities by June 30.
But for days this month, amid a lull in the bombings, Baghdad's most formidable problems had seemed to be traffic sometimes snarled for a mile before omnipresent checkpoints and the heat of an early summer.
In one neighborhood, graffiti that once heralded God, insurgents and Shiite militias had given way to a celebration of a soccer team. But even there, residents acknowledged that the violence had probably only subsided, not ended.
"There is always fear," said Rasmiyah Taha Mohammad, 75, who was forced out of her house in the neighborhood of Hurriyah in 2006 and had recently returned. "There are bombings, and there are still killings."
Iraqi officials have blamed remnants of the Baath Party and Sunni insurgents for the recent attacks, although they have insisted that security forces have restored calm.
"There are still security challenges," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said at a recent conference, "although we have taken over the territory and the initiative from the terrorists who have gone now into hiding here and there."
The bombing came as U.S. troops have begun closing outposts in Baghdad and moving to large bases outside the cities in accordance with an agreement between the United States and Iraq that set a deadline for the withdrawal. Under the agreement, U.S. combat troops must leave urban areas by June 30, although some troops are expected to remain in Baghdad and Mosul.
Iraqi forces will then be charged with security in Baghdad and other cities. But at the scenes of bombings this year, residents have expressed frustration at those forces for what they describe as their failure to protect them. At one recent bombing in a nearby neighborhood, residents threw sandals at security forces, while others spit and shouted insults.
Special correspondent Qais Mizher contributed to this report.
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Wave of Iraq bombings kills 66
by Ammar Karim Ammar Karim – Thu May 21, 10:24 am ET
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq was engulfed in a wave of violence on Thursday, with suicide attackers and bombings killing 26 people including three US soldiers, a day after huge blast in a Baghdad Shiite area left 40 dead.
The spike in attacks comes as the US military prepares to decamp from the nation's cities and towns by June 30 and has sparked fears of a return to the sectarian violence that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war three years ago.
The main target of Thursday's attacks was Baghdad, where a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a crowded market in the southern Dora district, killing at least 12 people and wounding 25, security officials said.
The bomber targeted a US patrol that was passing through a popular Assyrian Christian market in the confessionally mixed area, officials from the interior and defence ministry told AFP.
Three American soldiers were killed in a blast the US military said was caused by an "improvised explosive device", but did not say if it was in the same incident as reported by the Iraqi officials.
Since the US-led invasion in March 2003 a total of 4,299 American troops have died, according to an AFP count based on the independent website icasualties.org.
The market attack came soon after a bomb exploded in a rubbish bin inside a Baghdad police station, killing three policemen and injuring 20, among then 12 officers and eight civilians, officials told AFP.
The day began on a bloody note when a suicide bomber killed eight members of an anti-Qaeda militia in the tense northern city and oil hub of Kirkuk as they were lining up to receive their salaries, police said.
The bloodletting has sparked fears of a return of Al-Qaeda-style attacks aimed at reigniting the sectarianism that swept the country two years ago.
Iraqi Vice President Tarek al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, called for national unity in the wake of the violence.
"The evil and criminal powers are back once again to continue their criminal actions against our patient people," he said in a statement.
"We call upon our people to unite, to not give in to the enemies of Iraq who are trying to undermine our unity."
The bombing in Kirkuk occurred inside a building under the control of the Iraqi army, where anti-Qaeda fighters belonging to groups known as Sahwa, or Awakening, had gathered to receive pay cheques, police major Salam Zangana told AFP.
"A suicide bomber dressed in a Sahwa uniform blew himself up at a Sahwa gathering near Kirkuk's technical college. They were waiting to receive their salaries," he said.
Thursday's attacks follow a huge car bomb blast in a Shiite neighbourhood in Baghdad late Wednesday that killed at least 40 people and injured 83.
Diners and shoppers were enjoying a night out at the Al-Sadrain interchange that is popular for its eateries and shops when the powerful bomb went off.
The attack in Shula, a poor Shiite area in northwestern Baghdad, was the bloodiest since April 29 when more than 50 people -- also in mostly Shiite districts of the capital -- were killed in a spate of synchronised bombings.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura condemned the attacks in Baghdad and Kirkuk, describing them as "reprehensible crimes that have indiscriminately targeted ordinary Iraqis."
No one has claimed responsibility for the latest bombings but Al-Qaeda insurgents regularly target civilians and also try to kill Sahwa members, whom it brands traitors, especially in ethnically mixed parts of Iraq such as Kirkuk.
The oil-rich city, which has a Kurdish majority but substantial Arab and Turkmen minorities, has been the frequent scene of deadly ethnic tension since Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was toppled in the 2003 invasion.
The Sahwa movement began in late 2006 when local tribes and former insurgents started turning on Al-Qaeda in Iraq and allying with the US military, and today it counts about 92,000 fighters across the country.
The mainly Sunni militias have played a crucial role in ousting the Islamists of Al-Qaeda from their former strongholds.
April saw a string of deadly attacks in Shiite and mixed neighbourhoods of the capital that were reminiscent of attacks that occurred at the height of Iraq's sectarian fighting in 2006.
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