Chlorine bomb kills 32 Iraqis as US hunts for troops
Pastor Dale Morgan
Wednesday May 16, 7:21 PM
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Chlorine bomb kills 32 Iraqis as US hunts for troops*
Insurgent bombers detonated a van carrying a deadly payload of toxic
chlorine gas in a crowded Iraqi market, police said on Wednesday, as
violence continued to rage around the country.
The latest sectarian attack ripped through a Shiite enclave of Diyala
province, northeast of the capital, late Tuesday, killing at least 32
civilians and wounding 65 more, according to local security and
municipal officials.
Meanwhile, the US military released the names of seven soldiers killed
or kidnapped in Iraq when Al-Qaeda wiped out their patrol on Saturday,
as thousands more American troops searched for their missing comrades.
A Pentagon statement said a small unit from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team
of the 10th Mountain Division was deployed in Al-Taqa, south of Baghdad,
on Saturday when it was attacked with explosives and automatic fire.
The Al-Qaeda in Iraq militant group has boasted of carrying out the
ambush, in which four soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed and
three Americans abducted, and a massive search operation has been
underway for four days.
"Right now our focus is on searching for the missing soldiers, and we're
trying to isolate the areas where we think they could be," said Major
Kenny Mintz, operations officer for the missing troops' brigade.
"The (captors) don't have freedom of movement; if they have the
soldiers, they can't move them from where they are. We're doing a
deliberate search of the areas for the people responsible for the
soldiers we're looking for."
Mintz said leaflets had been dropped around the area, a dangerous region
of palm groves, orchards and tight-knit village communities around the
town of Mahmudiyah, which has been nicknamed the "Triangle of Death".
Since Saturday's attack, more than 4,000 US troops backed by jets, dogs,
helicopters and spy satellites have been scouring the district, in
defiance of an Al-Qaeda threat to harm the captives if the search continues.
The Pentagon named three of the four slain soldiers as Sergeant James
Connell, 40, of Tennessee; Private Daniel Courneya, 19, of Michigan and
Private Christopher Murphy, 21, of Virginia.
One of the troops who died in the attack was so badly disfigured he has
yet to be identified, but the Pentagon released four names which
represent the dead trooper plus three kidnapped comrades.
They are: Sergeant Anthony Schober, 23, of Nevada; Specialist Alex
Jiminez, 24, of Massachusetts; Private Joseph Anzack, 20, of California
and Private Byron Fouty, 19, of Michigan.
Al-Qaeda, which in June last year tortured and killed two US soldiers it
had captured near Mahmudiyah, has released a message mocking the
American search and threatening to harm the captives unless it is called
off.
Meanwhile, a truck bomb packed with tanks of toxic chlorine gas exploded
in a market in a Shiite enclave in Diyala, a battle ground between US
forces, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia.
Officials said the bombers struck at around 7.30 pm (1530 GMT) on
Tuesday in Abu Saydah, an isolated Shiite community.
"A small van with gas canisters exploded in a crowded market, there were
many people dead at the scene," said Captain Sadiq Mohammed. Other
officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, spoke of 32 dead and 65
injured.
Interior ministry operations director Brigadier General Abdel Karim
Khalaf confirmed there had been an explosion followed by two mortar
attacks on Abu Saydah, but was not able to give an official death toll.
In the southern city of Nasiriyah, radical Shiite cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia clashed with Iraqi security forces after
overnight fighting left 11 people dead.
"The clashes have killed two Iraqi soldiers and nine civilians," in and
around the city, said Hadi Badr, the city's top public health official,
adding that 91 policemen, soldiers and civilians had been wounded.
He said two Mahdi Army fighters received treatment in the local
hospital, but that many others were wounded and taken to other locations.
The fighting broke out late Tuesday when police arrested two members of
the powerful Shiite militia and accused them of targeting US-led and
Iraqi forces with homemade bombs and mortars, security officials said.
A delegation from the Mahdi Army, which commands widespread popularity
among Shiites in Baghdad and across the south of the country, demanded
police release the two men, but were refused, sparking the battle.
"They burned all the vehicles in front of one of the provincial
government buildings in the centre of the city, but the governor was in
another building next to it," said Colonel Rahim Ali of the Iraqi police.
Elsewhere in Iraq, seven people were killed in a series of attacks.