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April 15, 2007
Bombs Kill 34 in Baghdad in Spite of Crackdown
By JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, April 15 - At least 34 people were killed in Baghdad on Sunday in
another day punctuated by car bombings and suicide attacks on civilian
targets of the kind that the two-month-old American security crackdown has
so far been unable to restrain.
All six bombs that caused fatalities were detonated in predominantly Shiite
areas, which have been the persistent target of Sunni militant bombing
attacks.
The day's military casualties included the deaths of two British servicemen
killed when two British Puma troop-carrying helicopters crashed northwest of
Baghdad in a mission before dawn on Sunday. The United States military
announced three new deaths on Sunday: two soldiers and a marine, killed in
separate incidents.
Six British servicemen were injured in the helicopter crash, which Defense
Minister Desmond Browne of Britain said appeared to be accidental rather
than the result of insurgent ground fire that had brought down several
American military helicopters in Iraq this year. News reports from Britain
suggested that there had been a midair collision, possibly during a Special
Operations raid of the kind that elite British and American troops
frequently carry out from bases near the crash site. One of the injured
servicemen was said to be in critical condition in an American military
hospital.
The worst of Sunday's bombings in Baghdad occurred in the predominantly
Shiite district of Shurta in southwest Baghdad, where two car bombs that
exploded minutes apart killed at least 17 people and wounded 50, according
to an Iraqi police official at Yarmouk hospital, where many of the
casualties were taken. Witnesses said that the bombs detonated in a busy
street market and at a nearby intersection, and said that about half of
those who died were women and children.
At midafternoon, a vehicle bomb placed in a parked minibus exploded in the
Karada district of south-central Baghdad, an area with a mainly Shiite and
Christian population. Police officials said that nine people were killed and
17 wounded. A few hours earlier, according to a police account, a suicide
bomber blew himself up in a minibus on a busy street that heads into the
Kadhimiya district of north-central Baghdad, a mainly Shiite district,
killing at three people and wounding 11.
Two more bombs exploded in Karada at nightfall, killing five people and
wounding 27, including three policemen, according to the police.
In the northern city of Mosul, the police said two oil trucks driven by
suicide bombers had exploded outside an Iraqi military base in the city's
Yarmouk neighborhood, killing at least four people, including two soldiers,
and wounding more than 20 others. A police statement said there were other
bodies in the rubble, and described the attack as having followed a familiar
insurgent pattern, with the second bomber waiting to detonate until rescuers
and bystanders gathered around the wreckage caused by the first.
The bombings in Baghdad maintained a grim staccato of attacks that have
marked the first phase of the American-led attempt to regain control of the
capital with the so-called surge of nearly 30,000 additional troops that
President Bush ordered deployed to Iraq late last year. American commanders
say that the effort has reduced the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence that
racked Baghdad after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the city of
Samarra early last year, but that curbing insurgent bombings, many of them
by groups linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has so far eluded them.
The main bright spot so far for those who had hoped to see major gains from
the new security plan has come from the declining incidence of sectarian
killings. But the hopes generated by the falling numbers of unidentified
bodies found daily around the capital were dimmed on Sunday when the police
reported finding 30 new bodies, the highest daily number in a month. The
number of bodies found on wasteland, in sewers and elsewhere frequently
averaged 30 or more a day last year, after the Samarra attack.
An indication of how Baghdad's six million people are reacting to the new
security crackdown came from the frustrated and angry mood at the scene of
Sunday's minibus bombing in the Karada district. Among survivors and others
who helped extract victims from the carnage, there was widespread blame for
the Qaeda terrorists who are said by the Americans to be responsible for
many of the bombings. But there was reproach, too, for the Americans, and
for the United States-supported government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki, for failing to halt the attacks.
"I am asking myself, where is the 'security plan'?" said Zahid Awad Slaman,
a 30-year-old nighttime security guard who was riding his motorcycle nearby
when the minibus blew up. He described seeing a fireball bursting from the
parked vehicle, which enveloped people nearby as the blast from the bomb
threw cars across the street.
Like others here, he laid much of the blame on the Americans. "They said
they had rid us of the tyrant Saddam, but what have they done for us since
then?" he said. "I blame the Americans and the government for this, because
the violence grows day by day. The foreign troops have caused Muslims to
kill their Muslim brothers."
At a news conference in Baghdad on Sunday, the hard choices the war has
placed before American politicians were evident as Senator Chuck Hagel,
Republican of Nebraska, spoke with reporters about his two-day visit here,
his fifth since the invasion in March 2003. Senator Hagel, who has said he
is considering a presidential bid, broke with his party earlier this month
in voting for a Democratic-sponsored resolution in the Senate calling for an
American troop withdrawal by March 31, 2008.
But he was reluctant to reaffirm support for an early withdrawal as he
discussed what he had learned during a visit to American troops in Ramadi,
in the heart of insurgent territory, and talks with top Iraqi and American
officials in Baghdad.
Mr. Hagel predicted Congress would break the deadlock with President Bush by
striking the deadline for an American troop withdrawal that both the House
and Senate have attached to bills approving $100 billion in supplemental war
financing for Iraq and Afghanistan that Mr. Bush has requested. But he said
the compromise would still involve Congressionally mandated "benchmarks" for
progress in Iraq, which he did not specify.
The senator appeared eager to avoid political embarrassment during his visit
of the kind that enveloped his fellow Republican senator, John McCain of
Arizona, a strong supporter of the American troop buildup, when he toured a
Baghdad market on a visit last month under the protection of 100 American
troops and hovering helicopters and later told reporters that the scene at
the market reflected the progress achieved by the buildup.
Asked Sunday what he had done during his day in Baghdad, Senator Hagel, a
close friend of Mr. McCain, flashed a quick smile and said, "We did no
shopping while we were here."
Bombs Kill 34 in Baghdad in Spite of Crackdown
By JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, April 15 - At least 34 people were killed in Baghdad on Sunday in
another day punctuated by car bombings and suicide attacks on civilian
targets of the kind that the two-month-old American security crackdown has
so far been unable to restrain.
All six bombs that caused fatalities were detonated in predominantly Shiite
areas, which have been the persistent target of Sunni militant bombing
attacks.
The day's military casualties included the deaths of two British servicemen
killed when two British Puma troop-carrying helicopters crashed northwest of
Baghdad in a mission before dawn on Sunday. The United States military
announced three new deaths on Sunday: two soldiers and a marine, killed in
separate incidents.
Six British servicemen were injured in the helicopter crash, which Defense
Minister Desmond Browne of Britain said appeared to be accidental rather
than the result of insurgent ground fire that had brought down several
American military helicopters in Iraq this year. News reports from Britain
suggested that there had been a midair collision, possibly during a Special
Operations raid of the kind that elite British and American troops
frequently carry out from bases near the crash site. One of the injured
servicemen was said to be in critical condition in an American military
hospital.
The worst of Sunday's bombings in Baghdad occurred in the predominantly
Shiite district of Shurta in southwest Baghdad, where two car bombs that
exploded minutes apart killed at least 17 people and wounded 50, according
to an Iraqi police official at Yarmouk hospital, where many of the
casualties were taken. Witnesses said that the bombs detonated in a busy
street market and at a nearby intersection, and said that about half of
those who died were women and children.
At midafternoon, a vehicle bomb placed in a parked minibus exploded in the
Karada district of south-central Baghdad, an area with a mainly Shiite and
Christian population. Police officials said that nine people were killed and
17 wounded. A few hours earlier, according to a police account, a suicide
bomber blew himself up in a minibus on a busy street that heads into the
Kadhimiya district of north-central Baghdad, a mainly Shiite district,
killing at three people and wounding 11.
Two more bombs exploded in Karada at nightfall, killing five people and
wounding 27, including three policemen, according to the police.
In the northern city of Mosul, the police said two oil trucks driven by
suicide bombers had exploded outside an Iraqi military base in the city's
Yarmouk neighborhood, killing at least four people, including two soldiers,
and wounding more than 20 others. A police statement said there were other
bodies in the rubble, and described the attack as having followed a familiar
insurgent pattern, with the second bomber waiting to detonate until rescuers
and bystanders gathered around the wreckage caused by the first.
The bombings in Baghdad maintained a grim staccato of attacks that have
marked the first phase of the American-led attempt to regain control of the
capital with the so-called surge of nearly 30,000 additional troops that
President Bush ordered deployed to Iraq late last year. American commanders
say that the effort has reduced the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence that
racked Baghdad after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the city of
Samarra early last year, but that curbing insurgent bombings, many of them
by groups linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has so far eluded them.
The main bright spot so far for those who had hoped to see major gains from
the new security plan has come from the declining incidence of sectarian
killings. But the hopes generated by the falling numbers of unidentified
bodies found daily around the capital were dimmed on Sunday when the police
reported finding 30 new bodies, the highest daily number in a month. The
number of bodies found on wasteland, in sewers and elsewhere frequently
averaged 30 or more a day last year, after the Samarra attack.
An indication of how Baghdad's six million people are reacting to the new
security crackdown came from the frustrated and angry mood at the scene of
Sunday's minibus bombing in the Karada district. Among survivors and others
who helped extract victims from the carnage, there was widespread blame for
the Qaeda terrorists who are said by the Americans to be responsible for
many of the bombings. But there was reproach, too, for the Americans, and
for the United States-supported government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki, for failing to halt the attacks.
"I am asking myself, where is the 'security plan'?" said Zahid Awad Slaman,
a 30-year-old nighttime security guard who was riding his motorcycle nearby
when the minibus blew up. He described seeing a fireball bursting from the
parked vehicle, which enveloped people nearby as the blast from the bomb
threw cars across the street.
Like others here, he laid much of the blame on the Americans. "They said
they had rid us of the tyrant Saddam, but what have they done for us since
then?" he said. "I blame the Americans and the government for this, because
the violence grows day by day. The foreign troops have caused Muslims to
kill their Muslim brothers."
At a news conference in Baghdad on Sunday, the hard choices the war has
placed before American politicians were evident as Senator Chuck Hagel,
Republican of Nebraska, spoke with reporters about his two-day visit here,
his fifth since the invasion in March 2003. Senator Hagel, who has said he
is considering a presidential bid, broke with his party earlier this month
in voting for a Democratic-sponsored resolution in the Senate calling for an
American troop withdrawal by March 31, 2008.
But he was reluctant to reaffirm support for an early withdrawal as he
discussed what he had learned during a visit to American troops in Ramadi,
in the heart of insurgent territory, and talks with top Iraqi and American
officials in Baghdad.
Mr. Hagel predicted Congress would break the deadlock with President Bush by
striking the deadline for an American troop withdrawal that both the House
and Senate have attached to bills approving $100 billion in supplemental war
financing for Iraq and Afghanistan that Mr. Bush has requested. But he said
the compromise would still involve Congressionally mandated "benchmarks" for
progress in Iraq, which he did not specify.
The senator appeared eager to avoid political embarrassment during his visit
of the kind that enveloped his fellow Republican senator, John McCain of
Arizona, a strong supporter of the American troop buildup, when he toured a
Baghdad market on a visit last month under the protection of 100 American
troops and hovering helicopters and later told reporters that the scene at
the market reflected the progress achieved by the buildup.
Asked Sunday what he had done during his day in Baghdad, Senator Hagel, a
close friend of Mr. McCain, flashed a quick smile and said, "We did no
shopping while we were here."
