15 killed, 28 injured in Baghdad car bombings
Two car bombs killed at least 15 and wounded 28 more, including a boy who appeared to have lost a leg, in a co-ordinated attack on a central Baghdad shopping district early today.
The carnage in the capital’s Karradah area came on the heels of bloodshed last night that included four car bombs within 15 minutes of each other, killing at least 23 people in western Baghdad’s Shula neighbourhood and a nearby suburb. Nineteen were killed in Shula.
Most residents of Karradah and Shula are from Iraq’s Shiite majority, while the insurgents are almost exclusively Sunni Arabs, a minority that had dominated Iraq until Saddam Hussein’s ousting two years ago.
The attacks on both days were carried out at times when mass concentrations of people were on the streets. Last night’s bombs came hours before an 11pm curfew when many residents were out chatting over meals before locking themselves in their homes.
Today’s twin explosions took place when many were just eginning their daily routines. The attacks in Karradah happened nearly simultaneously, said police Lieutenant Colonel Salman Abdul Karim and officer Ahmed Hatam Al-Sharie. Five police officers were among the 15 dead, they said.
TV footage showed a boy who appeared to have lost his left leg.
The co-ordinated attacks served as a chilling reminder of how potent militants remain in the capital despite around-the-clock American and Iraqi troop patrols.
In all, at least 32 people were killed yesterday across Iraq, including a prominent Sunni law professor assassinated by gunmen. Jassim al-Issawi was a former judge who put his name forward at one point to join the committee drafting Iraq’s constitution.
The assassination appeared aimed at intimidating Sunni Arabs willing to join Iraq’s efforts to create a stable political system.
The US military said three US soldiers were killed a day earlier during combat operations west of Baghdad near the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi. At least 1,727 members of the US military have died since the war began in 2003.
Al-Issawi’s killing, potentially the most politically significant act of violence since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari came to office nearly two months ago, marked the first direct attempt to scare moderates away from political participation.
It sent a powerful message to the Sunni Arab community to either boycott involvement in the fledgling government or risk death.
Insurgents bent on starting a civil war to overthrow Iraq’s US-backed government have maintained nearly eight weeks of relentless attacks, killing more than 1,240 people since April 28, when al-Jaafari announced his Shiite-dominated government.
Al-Issawi, thought to be 50, was shot dead with his son, according to Abdul-Sattar Jawad, editor-in-chief of al-Siyadah, a daily newspaper where the lawyer was a contributing editor.
In Brussels, an international conference adopted a declaration of support for the struggling nation, backing the Iraqi government’s “efforts to achieve a democratic, pluralist, federal and unified Iraq”.
At the meeting, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vowed the Iraqi insurgency would be defeated.
“Terrorism can be defeated in Iraq,” Rice said. “And when it’s defeated in Iraq, at the heart of the Middle East, it will be a death knell for terrorism as we know it.”
But al-Issawi’s killing and the fresh Baghdad bombings provided fresh evidence of the insurgents’ ability to strike with impunity in the heavily protected capital, where US and Iraqi forces hunt insurgents patrol around the clock.
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a senior Shiite politician and a former Washington insider, condemned the assassination and renewed his government’s commitment to include Sunni Arabs in drafting the constitution.
Leaders of the Sunni Arab minority also condemned al-Issawi’s assassination, linking it to what they said was a plan to eliminate key minority figures ahead of the crucial task of writing the basic law.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for al-Issawi’s assassination, but al-Qaida in Iraq has threatened to kill Sunni Arabs co-operating with the government or the US.
Al-Issawi was on a list of Sunni Arab candidates included in an earlier round of negotiations to join parliament’s 55-member constitutional committee. He later withdrew his candidacy and a new list of 15 members and 10 advisers was submitted to parliament earlier this week.
The 15 are to join the 55 legislators on a parallel body that would make decisions by consensus and refer them to the original 55 for endorsement.
Sunni Arabs, who dominated Iraq for decades, lost power when Saddam, their last patron and a Sunni, was ousted.
Their boycott of historic elections in January further sidelined them. They won just 17 of parliament’s 275 seats, leaving the Shiites and Kurds, the two communities they had oppressed, with the remainder.
But Sunni Arab participation in the political process – for which the US and the European Union have repeatedly called – is essential for Iraq’s passage to democracy.
Parliament has until August 15 to draft the new constitution, which will be put to a referendum two months later. If ratified, it will be the basis for a general election in December, giving Iraq its first, full-term elected government in decades.
