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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Hillah body count up to 125 |
| 2005-03-01 |
| A suicide bomber killed 125 people and wounded 132 by detonating a car near police recruits in a crowded market south of Baghdad on Monday, the single bloodiest attack in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The bomber blew the car up next to a line of recruits waiting at a health centre to take an eye test so they could join the Iraqi police in the town of Hillah, 100 kms south of the capital, witnesses said. Many of those killed were at the market across the road, and were caught in the blast as they shopped in morning sunshine. "The martyrs may be more because there a number of body parts" to be counted, Mahmoud Abdul Reda said at the hospital. Morgue workers unloaded plastic body bags from pick up trucks as weeping relatives looked on. The attack in Hillah, with a majority Shia population, came as the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance sought the support of other parties to form Iraq's first-ever democratically elected government. Insurgents have stepped up their attacks against predominantly Shia targets in recent weeks. The 9.30am blast outside the medical clinic was so powerful it nearly vaporised the suicide bomber's car, leaving only its engine partially intact. The injured were piled into pickup trucks and ambulances and taken to nearby hospitals. Outside the concrete and brick building, people gingerly walked around small lakes of blood that pooled on the street. Scorch marks infused with blood covered the clinic's walls and dozens of people helped pile body parts, including arms, feet and limbs, into blankets. Piles of shoes and tattered clothes were thrown into a corner. "We found the hands of the suicide bomber attached to the steering wheel of the vehicle and a burned copy of the Koran in the wreckage," a fire officer in Hillah told AFP. Angry crowds gathered outside the hospital chanting "Allah-o-Akbar," and demanded to know the fate of their relatives. The director of Hillah General Hospital, Dia Mohammed, said most the victims were recruits waiting to take physicals as part of the application process to join the Iraqi police and national guard. Britain, Germany and the European Union condemned the Hillah blast. Prime Minister Tony Blair said British forces will help the Iraqi government track down those responsible for a suicide attack in Hillah Blair condemned the attack: "All civilised people should feel nothing but revulsion for the terrorists who can kill innocent Iraqis who only want to help build a new democracy and a better society," he said in a statement. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana also condemned the Hillah suicide car bombing. Solana also urged newly-elected leaders to act to help return calm to the war-scarred country, nearly two years after it was invaded by US-led forces seeking the ouster of Saddam Hussein. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said those responsible were trying to stop reconstruction. "Today's attack demonstrates the aims of these terrorists: they want to prevent political and economic rebuilding in Iraq. By doing so, they are targeting the interests of the Iraqi people," he said in a statement. In other violence, a second car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 30 kilometres north of Hillah, killing at least one policeman and wounding several others, police said on condition of anonymity. In al-Mashahda, 40 kilometres north of Baghdad, police found three unidentified corpses that had their hands tied together with plastic cuffs, the police commissioner Abbas Abdul Ridha said. A US soldier was shot dead at a traffic checkpoint in Baghdad, the US army said. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed in a gun battle south of Samarra, while an Iraqi soldier and translator died in a mortar attack near Dhuluiya, north of Baghdad, Iraqi security officials said. A civilian was killed and two were wounded during a small arms attack on a police station in Baquba, the US military and Iraqi witnesses said. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, his former vice president Taha Yasin Ramadan and three others will be the first members of the old regime to go on trial for crimes against humanity, an Iraqi special tribunal said. The five men, handcuffed and escorted by police, were hauled one by one before the court's chief investigative judge, who told them they would be tried for the 1982 killing of 143 residents of Dujail, a village north-east of Baghdad. They are accused of carrying out revenge murders after Dujail villagers allegedly tried to assassinate Saddam. The case, which can begin now that the court's formal investigation into the alleged crimes has been wrapped up, will not start for at least 45 days. The pending trials are meant to help heal the wounds inflicted on Iraqi society during decades of brutal rule by Saddam and his Baathist regime. "These are the first five people who have been referred for trial. Anybody else has been brought in for investigation and told they were under arrest," a Western legal expert, who asked not to be named, told reporters here. "These crimes with which you are charging me should be laid to the entire organisation, not just to me," he said. In Dubai the "deputy" of al-Qaeda's front man in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi called Monday on militants to press on with their Jihad, according to a statement posted on a website. "We call on every Mujahed (fighter) to carry on his Jihad and not bow," said the statement attributed to Abu Abdurrahman al-Iraqi, who was presented as deputy head of Zarqawi's group, al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers. "We will kill the Jews, the crusaders and their agents and dogs," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 "We found the hands of the suicide bomber attached to the steering wheel of the vehicle.." Should have read>>"We found the hands of the suicide bomber attached to the 10:00 & 2:00 O'clock position on the steering wheel..." |
| Posted by: Safety First 2005-03-01 8:39:38 PM |
| #1 Does that mean they will spare the crusader's baby ducks? Al Queada has been becoming soft these last times. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-03-01 10:34:24 AM |