Car Bombing in Baghdad Market Kills 25
Pastor Dale Morgan
May 22, 12:53 PM EDT
*Car Bombing in Baghdad Market Kills 25*
By RAVI NESSMAN
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A parked car bomb ripped through a crowded outdoor
market Tuesday in southwestern Baghdad, killing 25 people despite a
three-month-old security crackdown meant to reduce violence in the capital.
At least 60 people were wounded in the blast in the Shiite-dominated
neighborhood of Amil. Nearby buildings were badly damaged and set
ablaze, while others were reduced to rubble. Residents ran through the
streets with buckets and pots of water, while others frantically tore
through the rubble, looking for survivors. Groups of men carried bodies
wrapped in tarps out of the damaged buildings.
Fadhil Hussein, 32, who sells spices in the market, said he was thrown
from his stall and suffered shrapnel wounds in his back and head.
"I found myself in a pickup truck with other people. Some of them were
bleeding and yelling," he said.
The street was filled with water, presumably from a water main that burst.
Sami Hussein, 25, was heading to the market with her 5-year old son when
she heard the blast, "followed by gray and black smoke, which engulfed
the market and made me to fall on the ground."
She suffered shrapnel wounds in her face and legs.
"I lost my son, and have no idea about his fate," she said. Medical
officials at the hospital said he had been killed in the explosion.
The neighborhood has seen an increase in violence in recent weeks, and
Sunni politicians expressed fears that Shiite militiamen had resumed
their campaign of sectarian cleansing in Amil and nearby neighborhoods
of southwestern Baghdad.
The blast came amid the U.S. and Iraqi security operation meant to flush
out insurgents and restore order to Baghdad. Deadly attacks targeting
civilians and police have continued, however.
U.S. military officials say insurgent groups, feeling the pressure from
the crackdown, have hit back by stepping up their car bombings with
their devastating death tolls. A May 6 bombing in a market in the
neighboring Baiyaa district killed 30 people and wounded 80 others.
Violence was reported elsewhere in the capital Tuesday.
A few minutes before the bombing in Amil, gunmen in two cars drove
through the nearby Khadra neighborhood and ambushed a civilian car
carrying three plainclothes police from the major crimes unit, killing
two and wounding the third, police said.
Police and other Iraqi security officers have been heavily targeted by
insurgents, who accuse them of collaborating with U.S.-led forces in the
country.
Another police officer was killed when a roadside bomb exploded next to
a police patrol driving through an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, police
said. Three other officers were wounded.
In the Sunni-dominated Waziriya neighborhood in northern Baghdad, gunmen
disguised as soldiers set up a fake checkpoint and stopped a minibus
bringing college students to the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City. The
militants killed eight of the students and wounded three others, police
said.
At another fake checkpoint near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad,
gunmen killed six people from one family - a woman, her 5-year-old son
and four men - and stole their car, police said.
Later Tuesday, two mortar shells slammed into a teacher's college
affiliated with Baghdad University, killing three students and injuring
seven, police said.
And in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, a sniper shot two civilians,
killing one and wounding the other, police said.
The violence came as U.S. politicians debated how long U.S. troops will
remain in Iraq. A senior American official warned Monday that the Bush
administration may reconsider its support if Iraqi leaders do not make
major reforms by fall.
The U.S. official, who briefed reporters on condition his name not be
published, did not say what actions could be taken by the White House,
but his comments reflected the Bush administration's need to show
results in Iraq - as an answer to pressure by the Democrats in Congress
seeking to set timetables on the U.S. military presence.
Also Monday, British troops clashed with Shiite Muslim gunmen in the
southern city of Basra. Britain's military said one British soldier and
a civilian driver were killed when a supply convoy was attacked in the
center of the city, Iraq's second biggest.
Elsewhere, U.S. troops raided safe houses south of Baghdad but failed to
find three soldiers missing since a May 12 ambush that left four other
Americans and an Iraqi dead.
"We've (identified) some safe houses and we targeted a couple of those
today and they were able to slip away from us. But we're going to come
at things from a different angle," said a U.S. spokesman, Maj. Webster
Wright.
U.S. officers said the search by thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers
may be forcing the kidnappers to move the three Americans frequently,
preventing insurgents from posting pictures of their captives on the
Internet.
"We choose to be cautiously optimistic," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told CNN.
"We're pursuing all leads with a passion, but right now we believe our
soldiers are still alive. Each day that passes when we don't see proof
of life, it causes us concern."
With violence raging, pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki's government to demonstrate progress on key reforms or risk
losing American support for the unpopular war.
Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi said that Iraq's military was
drawing up plans to cope with any quick U.S. military pullout.
"The army plans on the basis of a worst case scenario so as not to allow
any security vacuum," al-Obeidi said. "There are meetings with political
leaders on how we can deal with a sudden pullout."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush expressed confidence in
al-Maliki during a telephone call Monday to the Iraqi leader.
He said the two talked about political progress in Iraq, and al-Maliki
gave Bush updates on two key U.S. demands - legislation to share Iraq's
oil wealth among its regions and ethnic groups and a reform of the
constitution.
But two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press that Bush
warned al-Maliki that Washington expected to see "tangible results
quickly" on the oil bill and other legislation as the price for
continued support. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not supposed to release the information.