Surge of violence in Iraq continues with 13 people killed
Sunni-led insurgents killed at least nine people, including women and children, with a car bomb in a crowded vegetable market in the town of Hillah today, in the second blast against Shiites in as many days, police said.
The death toll rose to nearly 100 from the previous day’s co-ordinated string of bombings and mortars in another town.
Elsewhere, in the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi police convoy was ambushed late yesterday, killing four policemen and wounding one, said police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim.
The pair of bombing attacks in two mainly Shiite towns, Hillah and Balad, appeared aimed at killing as many civilians as possible. In yesterday’s attacks in Balad, a parked car packed with explosives detonated just as people rushed in to help victims of a suicide car bombing in a nearby market. Moments later, another parked car exploded 200 yards away.
Sunni insurgents have launched a bloody new surge of violence to wreck an October 15 referendum on a new constitution – targeting the Shiite majority, which now dominates Iraq’s government. At least 194 people, including 13 US service members, have been killed in the past five days.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, the country’s most feared insurgent group, has declared “all-out war” on Shiites. But there were suggestions some other group may have carried out the attacks yesterday and today.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either, and both attacks included parked car bombs, while al-Qaida traditionally relies on suicide bombers and quickly claims its operations.
Moderate Sunni Arab leaders have urged their community to reject the constitution, saying it will fragment Iraq and leave them weak compared to Shiites and Kurds. Passage of the charter is key to prospects for starting a withdrawal of American troops – and if it fails, the country’s political instability will deepen.
Today’s car bomb exploded in Hillah’s Souq al-Sharia, an outdoor vegetable market bustling with shoppers, about 200 yards from the provincial governor’s office.
At least nine people, including three women and two children, were killed and 41 were wounded, said Dr. Mohammed Beirum of Hillah General Hospital.
As Iraqi police and soldiers sealed off the market, emergency workers lifted wounded victims and dead bodies into ambulances from streets covered with pools of blood and shattered vegetable stands.
In Iraq, the weekend is Friday and Saturday, and before heading to services at mosques at midday today, the Muslim day of worship, many Iraqis shop in their local markets.
Jawad Khazim, 45, who witnessed the Hillah attack from a nearby street, said he was temporarily deafened by the explosion. “I saw a fireball rising from the marketplace, and vegetables and human flesh flying through the air,” he said.
He condemned the insurgents for trying to kill Shiites and said he didn’t understand why they would target a crowded marketplace where minority Sunnis and Christians could be, too. “Why did the insurgents do this?” Khazim said.
The attack in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, came just before sunset yesterday. A suicide bomber drove his car into the town’s outdoor produce market, detonating it, followed moments later by an explosion of a car parked at a nearby bank. Another parked car exploded on Bint al-Hassan Street, a busy commercial avenue, said Col. Kazem Abdul-Razaaq, the town’s police chief. He was wounded in the blasts, along with four other police rushing to the scene of the first explosion.
The same day, two of Abdul-Razaaq’s officers, including a lieutenant colonel, were shot dead in their car in Baghdad.
At least 99 people were killed, including 13 children and four women, and the 150 wounded included 35 children and 25 women, said Dr. Khaled al-Azzawi of Balad hospital. Also among the victims were Sunnis who run some of the stands in the market, though their exact number was not known.
At the same time as the attacks, insurgents hit a police checkpoint in the city with six mortar rounds, killing a civilian. US soldiers based there returned the fire and detained an Iraqi suspect from a nearby home after finding traces of explosives on his body, the military said.
Also yesterday, the US military announced the deaths of five US soldiers on Wednesday in a roadside bombing during combat in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a hotbed of Iraq’s insurgency.
It was the deadliest single attack against American troops in more than a month, bringing to 1,934 the number of US service members who have died since Iraq’s war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In Washington, the top American commander in Iraq said yesterday that the process of withdrawing US troops depends greatly on the results of the referendum and elections set to follow if the constitution passes. “The next 75 days are going to be critical,” General George Casey told the US Senate Armed Services Committee.
But Sunni Arab success in rejecting the constitution would set back the political process for months, prolonging Iraq’s political instability.
Sunnis make up only 20% of the population, but they could defeat the charter because of a loophole in voting rules: If two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq’s 18 provinces vote “no,” the referendum fails – even if an overall majority approves. There are four provinces where Sunnis could potentially cross that margin.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has been struggling to negotiate changes to the charter in hopes of winning Sunni Arab support, and senior US officials in Washington have said they are confident that Iraq’s draft constitution will be approved.
Khalilzad has been shuttling between all sides, trying to secure last-minute changes to the draft, which parliament approved on September 18 after tough negotiations.
He has met rejections from Shiites and Kurds on some proposed changes, and some Sunni officials said the proposals were still not enough.
