Post by Moses on Jan 5, 2006 15:07:56 GMT -5
130 Iraqis, 7 U.S. soldiers killed in bombings
One attack near Shiite mosque, another at police recruiting site
Mushtaq Mohammed / Reuters
Jan. 5: NBC's Richard Engel reports from Baghdad on the wave of attacks.
KARBALA, Iraq - In one of the deadliest days in Iraq since the U.S. military overthrew Saddam Hussein, bombs killed at least 130 Iraqis and seven U.S. soldiers on Thursday — shattering hopes that last month’s election and the new year would herald a more peaceful era.
Nearly 200 people were wounded in the attacks on Iraqis in two cities. Another three bombs exploded in Baghdad, two of them detonated by suicide bombers. And insurgents sabotaged an oil pipeline near the northern city of Kirkuk, causing a huge fire.
Iraq’s president denounced the violence as an attempt to derail the political process as progress was being made toward including the Sunnis in a new, broad-based government, a development that would weaken the Sunni-led insurgency.
“These groups of dark terror will not succeed through these cowardly acts in dissuading Iraqis in their bid to form a government of national unity,” President Jalal Talabani said.
But Iraq’s largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, blamed the violence on Sunni Arab groups that fared poorly in the December election. The party warned that Shiite patience was wearing thin, and it accused the U.S.-led coalition forces of restraining the Iraqi army and its police forces.
The attacks in one of Shiite Islam’s holiest cities, Karbala, and the Sunni Arab stronghold of Ramadi raised fears of an escalation in sectarian tensions.
In Karbala, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt laced with ball bearings and a grenade, killing at least 63 and wounding 120.
Television pictures showed pools of blood in the street, which was littered with debris. Passers-by loaded the wounded into the backs of cars and vans, and one black-clad woman stood crying while clutching her dead or wounded baby to her chest.
70 killed in Ramadi
In Ramadi, another bomber blew himself up near police and army recruits, killing at least 70 and wounding 65, hospital sources said. The U.S. military said the blast ripped through a line of around 1,000 recruits as they waited to be security screened.
After the debris and body parts had been cleared away, hundreds of Iraqis reportedly returned to the queue.
It was the worst single attack in Iraq since July and the latest in a long string of assaults on police and army recruits, tasked with taking over the lead in the fight against the largely Sunni Arab insurgency from the U.S. military.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, said a roadside bomb killed five American soldiers patrolling in the Baghdad area. Earlier, Iraqi police Capt. Rahim Slaho said a U.S. convoy was heading for Karbala when it was attacked 15 miles south of the city, and that five soldiers were killed.
Another two U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb near the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, Iraqi police said. The bomb also killed two civilians and wounded seven people, including three U.S. soldiers.
Devices also exploded in Baghdad, although with less impact.
Three car bombs, two of them suicide attacks, rocked the capital in quick succession, suggesting a level of coordination that may be a response by Sunni Arab insurgents to the largely peaceful parliamentary election.
One suicide car bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Thamir al-Gharawi said, and gunmen killed three people in separate incidents, police said.
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