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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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January 23rd,
2007 - 88 Killed as Car Bombs Devastate Busy Baghdad Market |
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88 Killed as Car Bombs
Devastate Busy Baghdad Market By Marc Santora New York Times January 23, 2007 Baghdad, Jan. 22 - Two
powerful car bombs ripped through a market in central Baghdad on Monday,
turning an area crowded with shoppers and commuters into one of the worst
scenes of carnage since the war began. The bombs killed at least 88
people and wounded 160 others even as the first of some 21,000 extra American
troops ordered by President Bush began arriving in Baghdad, and as other
troops took up positions on SunniShiite fault lines as part of a new strategy
to secure the city. After a weekend in which 27
American soldiers were killed in Iraq, the attacks underscored the challenges
that even an augmented American force faces in trying to quell the sectarian
attacks. Military officials privately expressed concerns that a renewed
period of intense sectarian fighting could easily overwhelm their efforts. In addition to the market
attacks, a bombing in a Shiite town north of Baghdad killed 15 people on
Monday. Elsewhere, Iraqi government officials and members of security forces
continued to be shot, blown up and kidnapped. The blasts at the Baghdad
market were in a Shiite area and seemed to have been timed to inflict maximum
damage, occurring at noon, one of the busiest times of day. The explosions
left so many bodies that they had to be loaded one on top of another on
wooden carts, according to witnesses. Other victims were simply blown to
pieces. Ali Hussein 47, a biologist
who was on his way home, said he had been knocked off his feet. The force of
the blasts, which went off just seconds apart, turned everyday items like
lotions and DVDs into deadly projectiles. “Bottles of perfumes and
deodorants were flying in the air like small rockets,” Mr. Hussein said
outside Kindi Hospital, which was quickly overwhelmed with victims. “I was
wounded in my right leg.” Police officials said the
blasts had been so large that each of the cars used must have carried a huge
amount of explosives. From the eastern banks of the Tigris nearby, the two
explosions could be heard in quick succession. Massive clouds of smoke
billowed high into the sky, and as the fires caused by the explosion engulfed
at least a dozen cars, the cloud drifted over the heavily fortified Green
Zone, about a half-mile away. In the past such Sunni
aggression has been met by swift reprisals by Shiites, a cycle of violence
that left some 34,000 Iraqis dead last year. Monday’s bombings, directed so
specifically at civilians, seemed intended to elicit a reprisal, much like
the bombings in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City one day last fall, which
killed 144 people. Late Monday, a Sunni mosque
in the Dora section of Baghdad was blown up. There were no reports of
casualties. Residents said the attack was likely to have been retribution for
the bombing of a Shiite mosque in the same neighborhood last week. Elsewhere, the Sunni mayor
of Baquba, Khalid al-Sanjari, was abducted Monday, and after armed gunmen
took him way from his office they burned it to the ground, according to a
local police official. Residents in Baquba, about
25 miles northeast of Baghdad, said Mr. Sanjari had close ties with armed groups
formerly affiliated with the Saddam Hussein government. “It is strange that this man
was kidnapped,” one resident said. “The Iraqi police and army have arrested
him more than once, and he was released because of lack of evidence.” Although it is far from
clear who abducted the mayor, another resident said, “This is a punishment
for him, because armed groups tend to get rid of the person who is no longer
useful for them.” Late Monday evening, just
north of Baquba, at least 15 people were killed and 39 wounded in coordinated
bomb and mortar attacks in the Shiite town of Khalis, according to a local
police official. In Tal Afar, the police were
attacked in a bombing that left three dead and nine wounded. The town is
considered to be one of the few success stories of the American occupation, a
place where violence was largely quelled after intensive intervention. It is
being used as the model for the new strategy to secure Baghdad. Meanwhile, a group claiming
to represent Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia took responsibility for shooting down an
American Black Hawk helicopter northeast of Baghdad on Saturday. Local Iraqi
officials at the site of the crash, which killed all 12 people on board, said
the helicopter had been attacked, but American officials here said there an
investigation was in progress and did not confirm those accounts. Monday’s bombing in Baghdad
was followed by prolonged gun battles. The fighting could be heard across the
city, although officials did not release any casualty figures from the
ensuing skirmishes. At the site of the car
bombings, the popular market in Bab al Sharji, next to the Museum of Modern
Art, Iraqi Army troops spotted someone on a nearby rooftop shortly afterward
filming the carnage. They went after him as he
tried to escape by jumping from rooftop to rooftop before he was shot dead,
according to an Iraqi Army official. The official said the man was Egyptian
and was filming the attack to use as propaganda for the Sunni insurgents. The scene after the fact was
all too familiar: charred human remains, pools of blood, unrecognizable body
parts strewn among the used electronic equipment, CDs and vegetables. Many of the shops on the
square sell used goods at discount prices and are popular among working-class
residents. Although the area is mainly Shiite, Sunnis often shop at the
market, residents said. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki condemned the attack. “The violent terrorists who committed this
crime have illusions that their bloody ideology to kill large numbers of
civilians will break the will of the Iraqis and tear their unity and to raise
sectarianism,” he said in a statement. But on the streets of
Baghdad, people said they had little hope for their country at the moment. Outside the morgue, families
lined up looking for loved ones. Bodies were lined up on the street, some
covered in blue blankets. Near the dead there was a grim pile of arms and
legs and other body parts. Ahmad Fadam, Wisam A. Habeeb
and Qais Mizher contributed reporting. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/world/middleeast/23iraq.html |