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| Iraq |
| Update: 40 now dead in Baghdad hotel attack |
| 2003-10-27 |
| EFL; just the update. Suicide bombers struck the Red Cross headquarters and three police stations across Baghdad on Monday, killing about 40 people and injuring more than 200 in a coordinated terror spree that stunned the Iraqi capital on the first day of the Islamic holy month of fasting, Ramadan. One American soldier was killed in one of the police station attacks and six U.S. troops were wounded, the military said. Ibrahim put the Iraqi death toll at 34, including 26 civilians and eight police but not the attackers. ``We feel helpless when see this,’’ a distraught Iraqi doctor said at the devastated Red Cross offices. The Red Cross said 12 Iraqis were killed at its office, including two employees. Baghdad’s al Bayaa police station in the al-Doura neighborhood saw the most deaths, reportedly 15 including the American.``Of course we don’t understand why somebody would attack the Red Cross,’’ Red Cross spokeswoman Nada Doumani said. ``The Red Cross has operated in this country since 1980, and we have not been involved in politics.’’ In Geneva, Red Cross spokesman Florian Westphal said the ICRC had disclosed in August that it had received warnings of a threat and had been reducing its staff since a Sri Lankan staffer was killed July 22 south of Baghdad. ``It’s a big shock,’’ Westphal said. ``It is obviously impossible to move onto a normal day’s business, so we really have to step back and take stock.’’ Two buildings away, the explosion devastated the interior of the Al-Nawal private polyclinic operated by Dr. Jamal F. Massa, 53, who had been planning to open it as a full-fledged hospital next month. ``We feel helpless when we see this,’’ he said. He said he couldn’t understand why the Red Cross was targeted. ``This only hurts guards and other Iraqis.’’ Mouwafak al-Rabii, a Shiite Muslim member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said the United States must speed up the training of Iraqi police and soldiers and employ ruthless measures to crush the insurgency. ``There is no doubt about it that we need to change the rules of engagement with these people,’’ al-Rabii told CNN. ``The rules of engagement now are too lenient.’’ Seems to me that ordinary Iraqis want the "resistance" crushed. |
| Posted by:Steve White |