Bomber Kills 11 at Iraqi Army Festival
Pastor Dale Morgan
Bomber Kills 11 at Iraqi Army Festival*
By BRADLEY BROOKS
The Associated Press
Sunday, January 6, 2008; 8:09 PM
BAGHDAD -- Three Iraqi soldiers threw themselves on a suicide attacker
wearing an explosives vest at an Army Day celebration Sunday _ an act of
heroism the U.S. said likely prevented many more deaths. Iraqi police
said at least 11 people were killed in the blast, the deadliest in a
series of bombings in Baghdad.
One of the attacks in the capital killed an American soldier _ one of
two U.S. deaths announced on Sunday.
Shortly before the bomber struck the Army Day festivities, about two
dozen Iraqi soldiers were standing outside the offices of a local
non-governmental agency pushing for unity in Iraq. The troops, their
AK-47 rifles raised in the air, chanted pro-army slogans and a common
anti-insurgent taunt: "Where are the terrorists today?"
Associated Press photographer Hadi Mizban was about five yards away from
the suicide attacker when he blew himself up on a narrow street in the
central Karradah area.
"The blast happened as civilians were giving flowers to soldiers and
sticking them in the muzzles of their guns," recalled Mizban, an Iraqi
national. "It was a jubilant scene."
Afterward, he said, the street was littered with bodies, weapons and
shoes. Dazed soldiers and policemen carried their bloodied colleagues to
nearby pickup trucks that whisked them to a hospital.
"There was a severed head on the street and some of the soldiers that I
was photographing earlier were dead. Those who survived panicked,
pulling back from the scene and shooting in the air," said the
40-year-old Mizban.
Among the dead were four police officers, three Iraqi soldiers and four
civilians, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he
was not authorized to speak to reporters. At least 17 people were injured.
A U.S. military statement said five people were killed. The discrepancy
could not immediately be explained.
"These martyrs gave their lives so that others might live," said Lt.
Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman.
In the north in the Iraqi city of Mosul, meanwhile, three apparently
coordinated explosions targeted two Christian churches and a convent,
local officials and the U.S. military said. There were no deaths, but
four people were wounded.
"They are cowards," a priest told The Associated Press, refusing to give
his name because he feared for his safety. "We don't know what message
they want to convey."
"This act will only foster our insistence to remain loving brethren to
all sects in the city. I'm sure that those who committed this crime are
far away from religion."
The attacks in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, began
mid-afternoon when a parked car bomb exploded near a Chaldean Catholic
Church, causing damage but wounding no one.
About 30 minutes later, another parked car bomb exploded in the eastern
part of the city near an Assyrian Christian Church, damaging the
building and wounding four passers-by.
Nearly simultaneously, a bomb planted near a Chaldean convent in western
Mosul exploded, damaging the structure and a few nearby houses. No one
was hurt.
Violence in Iraq has fallen by some 60 percent in the last six months,
according to the U.S. military. Al-Qaida fighters were driven northward
from Baghdad and Anbar and Diyala provinces by angry Iraqi Sunni Muslims
who joined American forces, who were bolstered by 30,000 additional
troops last summer.
In other violence, a parked car bomb exploded and four mortars landed
near a bus terminal in eastern Baghdad, killing a civilian, police said.
In northeastern Baghdad, a parked car bomb exploded outside a popular
restaurant, killing a policeman and two civilians, police said.
Earlier Sunday, a Shiite tribal sheik who was trying to set up a
U.S.-backed group to combat militias was shot to death in Shaab, one of
Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods and a center for outlaw Shiite
fighters, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was
not authorized to speak to the media. The attack was confirmed by a
resident of the neighborhood who asked not to be named, saying he feared
reprisal.
Near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, a joint Iraqi-U.S.
patrol on Sunday discovered five severed heads, Iraqi military
officials. No further details were immediately available. The U.S.
military said it had no information about the macabre discovery.
Near the city of Khalis in Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad,
suspected al-Qaida in Iraq fighters attacked the house of a local sheik
and kidnapped him and 13 members of his family, an official from a joint
coordinating office said. The day before in the restive province, an
American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said.
Another U.S. soldier was killed Sunday in a roadside bombing in southern
Baghdad.
___
Associated Press Writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.