Article

2008-04-16 Iraq

60 die as car bombs rip through crowded areas in Iraq

Car bombs and a suicide attacker struck crowded areas in Baghdad and former insurgent strongholds to the north and west of the capital Tuesday, killing nearly 60 people and breaking a recent lull in violence in the predominantly Sunni areas. The attacks were a deadly reminder of the threat posed by suspected Sunni insurgents even as clashes between Shiite militia fighters and U.S.-Iraqi forces continued elsewhere.

The U.S. military condemned the bombings and said they appeared to have been carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq.

The first blast occurred in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, when a car parked in front of a restaurant exploded just before noon across the street from the central courthouse and other government offices.

One survivor described a huge fire that sent black smoke billowing into the sky and left charred bodies inside their cars. "I was on my way to the government office when a big explosion occurred nearby," said the witness, who would only identify himself by his nickname Abu Ali. "As I approached the site, I saw cars on fire, burned bodies and damaged shops damaged with shattered glass everywhere."

At least 40 people were killed and 70 wounded in the blast, according to hospital officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

AP Television News footage showed many of the bodies covered in crisp white sheets in the main hospital's courtyard while the emergency room inside was overwhelmed with the wounded.

The U.S. military in northern Iraq gave a slightly lower toll, saying 35 Iraqi citizens were killed, including a policeman, and 66 wounded in the attack. It was the deadliest bombing in Iraq since March 6 when a twin bombing killed 68 people in a crowded shopping district in the central Baghdad district of Karradah.

A suicide attacker on a motorcycle later drove up to a kebab restaurant in Ramadi and detonated his explosives vest around 12:30 p.m., killing at least 13 people including three policemen and wounding 20 other people, police Capt. Abu Saif al-Anbari said. Hospital officials said two children were among the dead. Police initially thought a parked car had exploded in the industrial area but later determined it was a suicide attack, al-Anbari said.

Ahmed al-Dulaimi, a 27-year-old mechanic, was at the restaurant when the blast occurred but escaped injury because he was sitting at a back table. He said his cousin, who owned the restaurant, had been killed. "Pieces of flesh flew into the air and the roof fell over us. I saw the horrible sight of bodies without heads or without legs or hands," he said.

Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, is the capital of Anbar province and has largely been sealed off by checkpoints. Like Baqouba, the area has seen a sharp decline in violence in recent months as Sunni tribal leaders have joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq. The U.S. military said overall attacks in Diyala province have dropped more than 76 percent since June 2007.

"Although attacks such as today's event are tragic, it is not indicative of the overall security situation in Baqouba," Maj. Mike Garcia, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Diyala, said in a statement.

A parked car bomb also targeted a police patrol in central Baghdad, killing four civilians who were passing by and wounding 15 other people, police said.

Elsewhere in northern Iraq, a double car bombing in Mosul wounded three Iraqi policemen and 15 civilians, the U.S. military said. Mosul is considered one of the last urban strongholds for al-Qaida in Iraq and the American and Iraqi militaries have promised a security crackdown.

The relative calm in predominantly Sunni areas has coincided with clashes between Shiite militia fighters and U.S.-Iraqi forces in Baghdad and the oil-rich southern city of Basra. But while the Bush administration has begun citing what it calls Iranian-backed Shiite factions as the greatest threat to Iraq's stability, American commanders have consistently warned that al-Qaida-led insurgents continue to pose a serious danger.

In other violence Tuesday, U.S. soldiers backed by an airstrike killed six militants during clashes in the Sudayrah area near Baghdad's main Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, the military said. Iraqi police in the area claimed that two boys were among those killed in the airstrike, but the military said no civilian casualties were reported.

Lt. Col. Steve Stover said separately that American troops killed four militants who fired rocket-propelled grenades at a tank elsewhere in the area.

Clashes also broke out later Tuesday in Sadr City, leaving four militiamen killed and 15 others wounded, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.

Posted by Fred 2008-04-16 00:00|| || Front Page|| [10 views ] Top
File under: Iraqi Insurgency

#1 Nope...had to be the Mericans, or there evil Jew proxies. muslims don't kill muslims.

Posted by anymouse">anymouse 2008-04-16 00:27|| 2008-04-16 00:27|| Front Page Top

#2 It's a quagmire, I tellya. First the Sunnis hate us, then the Shiites, then al Qaeda - it a war without end!

Posted by Moonbat Bobby 2008-04-16 06:42|| 2008-04-16 06:42|| Front Page Top

#3 Only if AQI can maintain a level of untargetted carnage like this for a week or more will they have a chance to re-cow the people of the neighborhoods. Tragic as this is, I suspect the populace will consider it as isolated events rather than a new trend at a couple of events per week.

Posted by Menhadden Snogum6713 2008-04-16 07:38|| 2008-04-16 07:38|| Front Page Top

#4 can any of you really honestly say 9-11 was worth all of the death we've ( intentionally and unintentionally ) caused in the middle east?

Posted by Greresing Black9705 2008-04-16 13:51|| 2008-04-16 13:51|| Front Page Top

#5 GB9705: and then some.
its too bad that you weren't one of them.
new play toy ereybody!

Posted by USN,Ret. 2008-04-16 14:22|| 2008-04-16 14:22|| Front Page Top

#6 Have we been hit since 9/11?
So...yeah. It was worth it.
Anything else you wanna know?

Posted by tu3031 2008-04-16 14:27|| 2008-04-16 14:27|| Front Page Top

#7 The question of whether 9/11 was worth all the death it brought to the ME is better directed to Obama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri.

Now, as to whether the deaths in the ME have evened things for 9/11, not even close.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-04-16 14:56|| 2008-04-16 14:56|| Front Page Top

#8 new play toy ereybody

Nope. Same boiler-plate commenter from Long Beach.

Posted by Pappy 2008-04-16 15:22|| 2008-04-16 15:22|| Front Page Top

#9 #4 can any of you really honestly say 9-11 was worth all of the death we've ( intentionally and unintentionally ) caused in the middle east?

Is that "sentence or statement or proclamation or whatever it is" decipherable?

pure gibberish ain't it?

Posted by RD">RD 2008-04-16 17:23|| 2008-04-16 17:23|| Front Page Top

#10 what I'm asking is if 9-11 (which killed so many thousands of our citizens) was a justifiable reason to invade Iraq and become responsible for so much carnage. We could've shut down our borders and denied access to Arabic states that sponsor terrorism (including Saudi Arabia). We had alternatives. Everybody here appears to sincerely believe we're doing the right thing in Iraq and that's fine but nobody seems to be challenging the idea that this might've been a really bad idea. When Japan bombed us it was different. They were a hostile soveriegn nation and they should've expected a response. But Atta and his people were criminals. They represented no nation. So we attack people who had nothing to do with 9-11? Think about it people. It's nothing you haven't heard or know personally about but the jokes I read and the general attitude on this website is one of total disregard for the American ideal of justice. We have not been just in this war and it's not going to affect us so much as our grandchildren as the United States will be marginalized and dismissed as another totalitarian and oppressive "has been" tough guy that gets smacked down by an up and coming people who really know what justice is. I don't know who those people are and I don't know when it's coming but I'm sure RD and Pappy's snappy comments will dry up and be replaced with tears.

Posted by Ebbuns the Galactic Hero6011 2008-04-16 19:46|| 2008-04-16 19:46|| Front Page Top

#11 couldn't hear the truth, huh?

Posted by Ebbuns the Galactic Hero6011 2008-04-16 19:54|| 2008-04-16 19:54|| Front Page Top

#12 Mind keeping the same name so we can tee off or are you like Herschel Walker?

Posted by tu3031 2008-04-16 19:55|| 2008-04-16 19:55|| Front Page Top

#13 I'm the one who's right...you won't be able to miss me

Posted by Ebbuns the Galactic Hero6011 2008-04-16 20:05|| 2008-04-16 20:05|| Front Page Top

#14 seriously though, I know some very dedicated Americans are on this website and I respect that but I'd like to exercise the freedom we have (and I fought for) to tell it like it is for a change.

Posted by Ebbuns the Galactic Hero6011 2008-04-16 20:07|| 2008-04-16 20:07|| Front Page Top

#15 I don't know who those people are and I don't know when it's coming but I'm sure RD and Pappy's snappy comments will dry up and be replaced with tears.

If I cry Ebbuns, it won't be for you girl or your through and through ignorance.

Posted by RD">RD 2008-04-16 20:10|| 2008-04-16 20:10|| Front Page Top

#16 Ebbuns, and you'll have to earn some respect here at Rantburg before you can expect much conversation or exchange of ideas with myself and others here. toodles ima off for some chores...

Posted by RD">RD 2008-04-16 20:17|| 2008-04-16 20:17|| Front Page Top

#17 troll-boy, we chew at OUR convenience. I'm kinda busy, and have no time for minor illiterates in denial.

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2008-04-16 20:53|| 2008-04-16 20:53|| Front Page Top

#18 Ebbuns the Galactic Hero6011 dear, given that we can't keep somewhere between twelve and twenty million illegal aliens from coming across our northern and southern borders, and legal visitors from overstaying their visas for decades, how were we to, as you put it, "shut down our borders and denied access to Arabic states that sponsor terrorism (including Saudi Arabia)"? We couldn't of course. The closest we were able to do was require male Muslim non-citizens to demonstrate they were in the country legally after 9/11, which resulted only in a large number of Pakistani families suddenly moving to Canada, doing nothing to stop the only-slightly reduced flow of Saudi lads coming here to get engineering degrees.

As for your other argument, about Mohammed Atta and his crew being non-state actors. The jihadi terror groups were and still are funded and trained by the rulers of Middle Eastern Muslim countries, plus Pakistan. Specifically, Afghanistan openly hosted the headquarters of Osama bin Laden's branch of Al Qaeda and was ruled by the Pakistan-trained and -funded Taliban. In 2003, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was the number one financier and trainer of Muslim and Arab terror groups, Iran was number two (now moved up to #1, and still hosting another branch of the Al Qaeda leadership, including Osama bin Laden's favourite son), Saudi Arabia was the number three funder (both several Saudi princes and private Saudi donors). Those who knowingly host and support such non-state actors must take responsibility for the fact that the actors do as they were trained. Thus it is entirely fair that we wage war against a country that hosted, trained and financially supported those who attacked or worked toward attacking our citizens, just as we were justified in waging war against Japan after they openly attacked at Pearl Harbor.

According to Pappy, you are a regular reader here. So you know that these particular questions are bloody nonsense, or if you don't it's because of a steadfast refusal to pay attention to events outside your skull. Do try to be a little less disingenuous next time you post. Especially that foolish bit about the truth -- something you seem a bit distant from at the moment.

Posted by Lumpy Ominerong2204">Lumpy Ominerong2204 2008-04-16 22:21|| 2008-04-16 22:21|| Front Page Top

#19 I don't know who those people are and I don't know when it's coming but I'm sure RD and Pappy's snappy comments will dry up and be replaced with tears.

I don't do 'snappy' comments. As for "tears": You have no clue who I am, what I've done, or what I do now. Do not presume anything - repeat, anything on my part. Do you understand?

I'd like to exercise the freedom we have (and I fought for) to tell it like it is for a change

That's what blogs are for. Especially if you start your own.

With the tack you've taken here, you've already lost any chance of having any kind of reasonable discussion, or contribute anything of value except that of a chew-toy.

I am done with you.

Posted by Pappy 2008-04-16 22:22|| 2008-04-16 22:22|| Front Page Top

#20 "But Atta and his people were criminals"

No they aren't. They committed an act of war. There in lies th huge disconnect moonbats like you subscribe. End of story and relevance of your argument.

Posted by Beavis 2008-04-16 22:41|| 2008-04-16 22:41|| Front Page Top

#21 I don't know what I did, but Lumpy Ominerong2204 is me... or more correctly I. ;-)

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-04-16 22:54|| 2008-04-16 22:54|| Front Page Top

#22 so, you're NOT lumpy? I bet Mr. TW is happy

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2008-04-16 23:10|| 2008-04-16 23:10|| Front Page Top

#23 If you say so, Frank dear.

Posted by trailing wife 2008-04-16 23:40|| 2008-04-16 23:40|| Front Page Top

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