Car Bomb Kills 16 in Iraq City
Pastor Dale Morgan
Car Bomb Kills 16 in Iraq City*
By RAVI NESSMAN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 8, 2007; 2:38 PM
BAGHDAD -- A suicide car bomber flattened a restaurant in a busy market
in the Shiite holy city of Kufa on Tuesday, killing at least 16 people
and wounding 70 in an attack sure to further inflame tensions between
Iraq's Sunni and Shiite populations.
In response, local authorities closed the entrances to Kufa and its
sister holy city of Najaf _ strongholds of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia _ and imposed a vehicle ban around the
revered shrines and mosques in the two towns, said Ahmed Duaible, a
local government spokesman.
The suicide attack came a day after Iraq's Sunni vice president
threatened to leave the Shiite-dominated government unless key
unspecified amendments to the constitution were made by May 15 _ a move
that would plunge Iraq into a political crisis.
Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi made the threat to lead a Sunni walkout
from the Cabinet and parliament in an interview with CNN. He also said
he turned down an offer by President Bush to visit Washington until he
can count more fully on U.S. help, CNN said on its Web site.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, said al-Hashemi did not
mention the threat in a meeting late Monday, and Ali Baban, the Sunni
planning minister, said Tuesday the Sunni bloc had no plans to quit the
government.
Al-Hashemi called his meeting with al-Maliki an effort to "melt the ice"
and seemed to back away from the threat.
"I can say that we can, God willing, build an ambitious future based on
a real partnership and joint understanding. And I think it is very
important to go ahead with the political project," he told reporters.
Ali al-Dabbagh, al-Maliki's spokesman, said the parliamentary committee
on amending the constitution was scheduled to present its
recommendations on May 15 and should be given a chance to work. "There
should be a dialogue, not threats. No political endeavor can succeed
with threats," he said Tuesday.
The 550-pound car bomb at Kufa exploded about 10 a.m., destroying a
two-story kebab restaurant in an area that also included a school and
the mayor's office, police said. The 16 dead included women and
children, said Salim Naima, spokesman of the Najaf health department.
Before detonating the bomb, the attacker was seen driving slowly as he
searched for a place to park on the narrow street, which was lined with
carts, witnesses said.
"It was a huge explosion, its force threw me a few meters away from my
wife," said Hussein Abid Matrod, a 38-year old taxi driver who was
shopping with his wife and suffered shrapnel wounds to his back and
legs. "I saw many people on the ground as smoke mixed with dust, and the
smell of the gunpowder was everywhere."
Panicked people ran through the corridors searching for their relatives
at the Furat al-Awsat hospital in nearby Najaf. Women in black abayas,
traditional Islamic cloaks, pounded their chests and faces in grief.
"We are poor people looking for anything to secure our livelihood and we
have nothing to do with politics. Why do they do this to us?" asked
Firas Abdul-Karim, a 23-year-old day laborer who was wounded in the blast.
The revered Kufa mosque was about 400 yards from the blast. Millions of
Shiite Muslim pilgrims visit the shrines at Kufa and Najaf, home to top
Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as well as radical
anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The predominantly Shiite southern areas have seen a spike in violence
and unrest, blamed in part on militants who have fled a security
crackdown in Baghdad.
On April 28, a suicide car bomber killed 68 people in a crowded
commercial area near two of Iraq's most sacred Shiite shrines in
Karbala, 45 miles northwest of Kufa. That attack came two weeks after a
car bombing killed 47 people killed and wounded 224 wounded in the same
area.
Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, also has been hit by some of
the deadliest bombings this year, including a double suicide attack that
killed 120 Shiite pilgrims and another one that killed 73 people in a
market. Kufa itself was struck by a Dec. 30 bombing at a fish market
that killed 31 people.
Also Tuesday, a roadside bomb went off next to a passing minibus in the
Shiite area of Zafaraniyah on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad,
killing three passengers and injuring five others, police said.
In Jalula, about 80 miles northeast of Baghdad, a suicide bomber
attacked a police station Tuesday morning as the night-shift officers
gathered in front of the building, preparing to go home, police said.
The explosion killed two policemen and wounded 20 others, police said.
The bullet-riddled bodies of six men _ the apparent victims of sectarian
violence _ were found with their hands and legs bound and bearing marks
of torture in an abandoned field in the city of Baqouba, 35 miles
northeast of Baghdad, police said.
Also in Baqouba, 12 gunmen tried to rob a bank, sparking a gunbattle
that killed one police officer and wounded another, police said. They
said the attackers fled without any money.
An al-Qaida umbrella group, meanwhile, threatened in a video to kill
nine abducted Iraqi security officers in 72 hours unless their demands
were met, including the release of all Sunni women from Iraqi prisons.
The video showed the five army officers and four policemen lined up in a
room, their hands bound, in front of a black banner of the Islamic State
of Iraq, a grouping of insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq.
The nine gave their names and ranks, and several called on their
comrades to quit the security forces. "I ask my brothers to leave work
with the military and return to their religion," said a lieutenant
colonel, the highest-ranking officer among the men.
The Islamic State of Iraq claimed in a statement Monday that it had
abducted the nine in Diyala province, north of Baghdad.
In the video, a voice-over said: "We give al-Maliki's renegade
government 72 hours to respond to our demands. Otherwise, God's judgment
will be implemented" _ a reference to the threat to kill the men. It did
not say when the 72-hour time period began.