Iraq's most violent Ramadan ends in bloodshed
Pastor Dale Morgan
Monday October 23, 3:27 AM
*Iraq's most violent Ramadan ends in bloodshed*
Bombers attacked crowds of holiday shoppers and insurgents massacred
unarmed police trainees as shell-shocked Iraqis marked the end of the
bloodiest Ramadan since the US invasion.
Islam's holy month will end on this week's Eid -- the precise date being
one of many things that divides Iraq's Sunnis and majority Shiites --
after four weeks of slaughter that was ferocious even by Iraq's savage
standards.
Two busloads of police recruits were ambushed on their way back from a
training centre north of Baghdad by gunmen who planted a bomb in their
path then poured automatic fire into their unarmoured vehicles, police said.
"Fifteen unarmed police recuits were killed and 24 others wounded,"
Diyala province police chief Major General Ghassan al-Bawi told AFP.
An interior ministry official said some trainees were missing and that
many of the victims' bodies had been booby-trapped by the attackers,
suspected to be Sunni insurgents opposed to the US-backed government.
Hundreds of Iraqis have been murdered in both sectarian violence and
clashes between armed militia factions, while US military casualties for
October have already hit the highest monthly death toll of the year 2006.
In renewed violence on Sunday, several bombs exploded in Baghdad,
killing at least five people and wounding around 50, including children,
medics said.
One blast hit a bakery in the mainly Shiite suburb of Baghdad Jadida,
injuring 20 people who had come to buy sweets and pastries, the latest
in a series of attacks targeting families preparing for the upcoming feast.
Later, three women and two men were killed and 20 people wounded when a
suicide attacker wearing a bomb belt blew himself up in front of clothes
stalls in east Baghdad, according to doctors and police.
"I saw a woman lying in the morgue with her shopping still in her hand,"
said a medic at Al-Kindi hospital.
And another bomb exploded inside a collective taxi as it passed through
the crowded Shorjah market, police said at the scene.
"A passenger dropped a bomb in the back of the cab and got out. The car
had gone just 20 metres (yards) when it exploded, killing the driver and
another passenger and injuring five bystanders," said police Major
Mohammed Ali.
Shortly after he spoke, another blast hit a nearby police vehicle, while
terrified shoppers scattered for safety. One more civilian was hurt
while panic-stricken officers fired blindly at surrounding buildings.
Meanwhile, US-led coalition forces unleashed an air strike south of the
capital, killing five insurgents with a "precision strike" as they
planted a booby-trap on a road near the town of Arab Jabur, the military
said.
US officials hope the end of Ramadan will see the bloodletting ease up,
but the chaos has already changed the terms of the debate in Washington,
where talk is turning to the search for an exit strategy.
President George W. Bush met senior commanders and diplomats on
Saturday, amid reports the United States is losing confidence in Iraqi
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ability or willingness to stem the violence.
"The participants focused on the nature of the enemy, the challenges in
Iraq, how to better pursue our strategy and the stakes of succeeding for
the region and the security of the American people," a US spokeswoman said.
According to a report in the New York Times, the officials could decide
to impose a timetable on Maliki to address sectarian violence and get a
handle on the security situation, or face political "penalties".
"There is one thing we will not do: We will not pull our troops off the
battlefield before the mission is complete," Bush said in his weekly
radio address, two weeks before key congressional elections.
Four US marines were killed Saturday by "enemy action" while fighting in
western Iraq's Al-Anbar province, a lawless desert region populated by
Sunni tribes and prey to roving gangs of Al-Qaeda insurgents.
On the same day, a US army soldier was killed further north.
Their deaths brought US fatalities for the month of October so far to
80, with the monthly death toll on course to become the heaviest since
American forces fought the battle of Fallujah in November 2004.
And while the war in Al-Anbar is a relatively clear-cut battle between
Al-Qaeda and US forces that one US commander called "the closest thing I
have to a straight fight", the picture elsewhere is more complex.
In the streets of Baghdad and the killing fields around it, rival Shiite
and Sunni death squads and militias are engaged in a tit-for-tat battle
to cleanse areas of civilian followers of the rival sect.
Meanwhile, in the largely Shiite cities of the south, rival militia
groups clash with each other and with Iraqi state security forces that
are themselves often infiltrated and controlled by the warring factions.
Authorities imposed a curfew in the town of Suweira on Sunday after
fighting erupted between the Mahdi Army -- a loosely-organised militia
nominally loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- and police.