Truck Bomb Levels Baghdad Market, Killing at Least 130

A man was taken to a hospital Saturday after he was wounded in the bombing
of a popular Baghdad market.

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
and QAIS MIZHER

Published: February 4, 2007
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Feb. 3 — A mammoth truck bomb destroyed a popular central Baghdad market and ripped through scores of shops and apartments late Saturday afternoon, killing at least 130 people and wounding more than 300 in the worst of a series of horrific attacks against Shiites in recent weeks.

The attack appeared to be the work of a suicide bomber who detonated about 2,000 pounds of explosives about 5 p.m. in the bustling Sadiriya market, in a Shiite enclave of Baghdad, as shoppers finished buying food for dinner and men sipped coffee at the popular cafes nearby, the police and wire services reported. It was one of the deadliest attacks to hit the capital since the United States invasion almost four years ago.

The attack, the fourth huge bomb to strike a densely populated Shiite area since Jan. 16, seemed sure to inflame Shiite political and militia leaders just as more than 20,000 American troops begin to arrive in an attempt to stop the sectarian bloodletting that threatens to tear Iraq apart. A prime objective of the American military will be to prevent the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and security forces from directing new military operations disproportionately at Sunni areas.

But the chaotic scene after the blast suggested how much pressure Shiite political leaders will face to avenge the recent attacks: as onlookers cursed the Iraqi government for not protecting them from Sunni militants, Shiite militiamen descended on the scene and angrily questioned people who they believed did not belong in the neighborhood. Many Shiites have come to view the militias — which have been accused of much of the sectarian violence — as their best protection against Sunni insurgents.

Hours after the bombing, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, released a statement denouncing the attack as the work of “Saddamists” and Sunni insurgents.

The bomber struck close to the middle of the narrow market, which stretches for about an eighth of a mile, killing everyone nearby and dozens more in the apartment buildings and coffeehouses that line the market, witnesses said.

“Look at all these buildings,” shouted Qadir Ali Ismael, a 41-year-old vegetable seller who escaped the blast, as he angrily waved at the buildings. “There were families living in these apartments and they didn’t find anyone alive in there. All of those people were killed!”

Two buildings were flattened and 10 more seriously damaged. The attack left a crater 15 feet long, 10 feet wide and five feet deep. Shock waves seriously damaged some buildings a block away.

Police rushed frantically to rescue wounded people trapped inside buildings only to find that they could not break through damaged doors to get inside. By the time they did, some of the wounded had bled to death, said Abu Ali, who runs a health clinic a few blocks from the market.

“The doors wouldn’t open,” he said. “The rescuers are getting there too late.” He said he alone treated more than 40 people, mostly children and women, and quickly ran out of first aid supplies at his clinic.

As the loudspeaker of a nearby Shiite mosque called for people to donate blood, American Humvees took up positions on a street that leads to a nearby Sunni neighborhood.

Anger spread throughout the crowd that the attack was the work of Sunni insurgents. One elderly man, crying and shouting, was surrounded by younger men.

“They tried to kill us because we are Shia,” the older man said. “Why are there no bombs in Adhamiya,” he said, referring to a large Sunni district of Baghdad. “Maliki and the Americans are the sons of dogs.”

Grieving relatives rushed to hospitals. At the Imam Ali Hospital in Sadr City, the refrigerated portion of the morgue quickly filled and bodies were piled up next to it. People tried to donate blood but were told to go to a blood bank that is in a dangerous area of Baghdad, he said.

One man at the hospital, a Shiite who refused to give his name, said, “These people suffered under Saddam Hussein, and now they are still suffering.”

The blast was the largest attack since November, when a series of bombs killed about 200 people in Sadr City. It also appeared to be the deadliest single bomb blast since the invasion, eclipsing even the September 2005 attack in a Shiite area of Baghdad in which a bomber killed more than 120 people seeking work as day laborers.

Earlier on Saturday, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, repeated his call for Muslims to “stand together and repel division and reject sectarian rifts,” and he denounced those who he said were “deepening the sectarian disputes between the Muslims.”

The calamity in the capital came after a bloody day throughout the rest of Iraq that included a coordinated volley of seven car bombs in Kirkuk, apparently the latest strike by insurgents seeking to thwart Kurdish efforts to fully annex the disputed oil-rich city.

The first Kirkuk suicide attacker detonated his bomb-laden Toyota near the offices of the powerful Kurdistan Democratic Party at about 10:30 a.m., killing one civilian and wounding 17 others while damaging 10 nearby houses, according to Burhan Habib Tayeb, a senior police officer in Kirkuk. Other reports placed the casualty toll at two dead and 30 wounded.

The next four car bombs were detonated about every 10 minutes, beginning at 11 a.m. One wounded two students at a school for girls and another wounded four people at a gas station. Two more bombs detonated later in the day, wounding two civilians, said a Kirkuk police captain, Emad Jasim.

Gunmen fatally struck Iraqi forces twice on Saturday morning in Samarra, a large city north of Baghdad where the destruction of a Shiite shrine last February set off a wave of sectarian violence. Gunmen struck a police checkpoint north of the city at about 7:30 a.m., killing six policemen and wounding six more, a police official in Samarra said. Four Iraqi soldiers were later killed just south of the city after gunmen attacked their checkpoint. Three other soldiers were wounded, and three of the gunmen were killed, the police official said.

The Iraqi police also battled insurgents in a neighborhood of western Mosul on Saturday, while a large bomb wounded three policemen in another part of western Mosul, a police official said. Several insurgents were killed in the gun battle, but no policemen died, he said.

Iraqi forces imposed a curfew in Kirkuk, Mosul and Samarra following the violence.

Two American soldiers assigned to units in the insurgent-dominated Anbar Province in western Iraq died on Friday from “wounds sustained due to enemy action,” the U.S. military announced. The names and specific units were not released.

A soldier from the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) died from an apparent heart attack after physical training on Friday, the military reported. Another soldier from the same command also died on Jan. 30 from “noncombat-related causes,” the military said.

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Ashura Attacks Leave Dozens of Dead in Iraq

ASHURA IN BANGLADESH Shiite Muslims flailed themselves today in Dhaka.

By MARC SANTORA

Published: January 30, 2007
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Jan. 30 — As more than two million Shiite pilgrims converged on Iraq’s shrines to celebrate the holy day of Ashura, three separate attacks in different cities left dozens of worshippers dead today in bombings, mortar attacks and ambushes.

But there were no reports of violence in Iraq’s two holiest cities, Najaf and Karbala, the day after Iraqi security force, aided by American air power and ground troops, defeated hundreds of militants from a renegade Shiite militia that they said was bent on widespread death and destruction on the holy day. Hundreds of suspects were being questioned today about their possible involvement with the group, officials said.

Across the country, security forces were on the streets in numbers. Iraqi Army and police checkpoints were augmented by independent checkpoints set up by the Shiite militias that control many key areas.

Even so, several attackers managed to disrupt Shiite rituals on the holy day, which marks the death of a revered Shiite figure, Imam Hussein, in the battle of Karbala more than 1,000 years ago.

In the town of Balad Ruz in Diyala Province, a suicide bomber killed at least 23 people and wounded another 5 when he blew himself up in a Shiite mosque. In the nearby city of Baquba, residents reported fierce morning clashes in the streets, although no reports of casualties were immediately available.

In Khanaqin, a small town northeast of Baghdad with a mixed Shiite and Sunni population, a roadside bomb exploded during a procession of Shiite worshippers, killing at least 12 people, including three women.

In Baghdad, dozens of mortar rounds landed in the Shiite neighborhood of Khadimiya and dozens more landed in neighboring Ahdimiya, which is predominantly Sunni. Initial reports from police officials indicated that at least 10 people died in the attacks.

Elsewhere in the capital, four Shiite pilgrims were killed and nine more were wounded when gunmen opened fire on two minibuses.

As the investigation continued into Sunday’s clash with the heavily armed renegade militia outside Najaf, questions also remained about the performance of the Iraqi forces involved.

On Monday, American and Iraqi officials said that the forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity of the obscure group and needed far more help from American forces than previously disclosed. They said American ground troops — and not just air support, as reported Sunday — were mobilized to help the Iraqi soldiers, who appeared to have dangerously underestimated the strength of the renegade militia. The group, which calls itself the Soldiers of Heaven, had amassed hundreds of heavily armed fighters.

Iraqi government officials said the group apparently was preparing to storm Najaf, occupy the sacred Imam Ali mosque, and assassinate the religious hierarchy there, including the revered leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

“This group had more capabilities than the government,” said Abdul Hussein Abtan, the deputy governor of Najaf Province, at a news conference.

Only a month ago, in an elaborate handover ceremony, the American command transferred security authority over Najaf to the Iraqis. The Americans said at the time that they would remain available to assist the Iraqis in the event of a crisis.

The Iraqis and Americans eventually prevailed in the battle with the renegade militia. But the Iraqi security forces’ miscalculations about the group’s strength and intentions raised troubling questions about their ability to recognize and deal with a threat.

The battle also brought into focus the reality that some of the power struggles in Iraq are among Shiites, not just between Shiites and Sunnis. The Soldiers of Heaven is considered to be wholly or at least partly run by Shiites.

Among the troubling questions raised is how hundreds of armed men were able to set up such an elaborate encampment, which Iraqi officials said included tunnels, trenches and a series of blockades, only 10 miles northeast of Najaf. After the fight was over, Iraqi officials said they discovered at least two antiaircraft weapons as well as 40 heavy machine guns.

The government knew that the Soldiers of Heaven had set up camp in the area, but officials said they thought they were there to worship together.

Mr. Abtan said the Iraqi forces later decided to move on the group because an informer said Sunday was “zero hour” and the government noticed more men streaming into the area.

“If this operation had succeeded, it would have been a chance of a lifetime for them,” he said.

But there were no reports of violence in Iraq’s two holiest cities, Najaf and Karbala, the day after Iraqi security force, aided by American air power and ground troops, defeated hundreds of militants from a renegade Shiite militia that they said was bent on widespread death and destruction on the holy day. Hundreds of suspects were being questioned today about their possible involvement with the group, officials said.

Across the country, security forces were on the streets in numbers. Iraqi Army and police checkpoints were augmented by independent checkpoints set up by the Shiite militias that control many key areas.

Even so, several attackers managed to disrupt Shiite rituals on the holy day, which marks the death of a revered Shiite figure, Imam Hussein, in the battle of Karbala more than 1,000 years ago.

In the town of Balad Ruz in Diyala Province, a suicide bomber killed at least 23 people and wounded another 5 when he blew himself up in a Shiite mosque. In the nearby city of Baquba, residents reported fierce morning clashes in the streets, although no reports of casualties were immediately available.

In Khanaqin, a small town northeast of Baghdad with a mixed Shiite and Sunni population, a roadside bomb exploded during a procession of Shiite worshippers, killing at least 12 people, including three people.

In Baghdad, dozens of mortar rounds landed in the Shiite neighborhood of Khadimiya and dozens more landed in neighboring Ahdimiya, which is predominantly Sunni. Initial reports from police officials indicated that at least 10 people died in the attacks.

Elsewhere in the capital, four Shiite pilgrims were killed and nine more were wounded when gunmen opened fire on two minibuses.

As the investigation continued into Sunday’s clash with the heavily armed renegade militia outside Najaf, questions also remained about the performance of the Iraqi forces involved.

On Monday, American and Iraqi officials said that the forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity of the obscure group and needed far more help from American forces than previously disclosed. They said American ground troops — and not just air support, as reported Sunday — were mobilized to help the Iraqi soldiers, who appeared to have dangerously underestimated the strength of the renegade militia. The group, which calls itself the Soldiers of Heaven, had amassed hundreds of heavily armed fighters.

Iraqi government officials said the group apparently was preparing to storm Najaf, occupy the sacred Imam Ali mosque, and assassinate the religious hierarchy there, including the revered leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

“This group had more capabilities than the government,” said Abdul Hussein Abtan, the deputy governor of Najaf Province, at a news conference.

Only a month ago, in an elaborate handover ceremony, the American command transferred security authority over Najaf to the Iraqis. The Americans said at the time that they would remain available to assist the Iraqis in the event of a crisis.

The Iraqis and Americans eventually prevailed in the battle with the renegade militia. But the Iraqi security forces’ miscalculations about the group’s strength and intentions raised troubling questions about their ability to recognize and deal with a threat.

The battle also brought into focus the reality that some of the power struggles in Iraq are among Shiites, not just between Shiites and Sunnis. The Soldiers of Heaven is considered to be wholly or at least partly run by Shiites.

Among the troubling questions raised is how hundreds of armed men were able to set up such an elaborate encampment, which Iraqi officials said included tunnels, trenches and a series of blockades, only 10 miles northeast of Najaf. After the fight was over, Iraqi officials said they discovered at least two antiaircraft weapons as well as 40 heavy machine guns.

The government knew that the Soldiers of Heaven had set up camp in the area, but officials said they thought they were there to worship together.

Mr. Abtan said the Iraqi forces later decided to move on the group because an informer said Sunday was “zero hour” and the government noticed more men streaming into the area.

“If this operation had succeeded, it would have been a chance of a lifetime for them,” he said.

The Iraqis initially sent a battalion from their Eighth Army Division, along with police forces, but they were quickly overwhelmed, according to an Iraqi commander at the scene. The battalion began to retreat but was soon surrounded and pinned down, and had to call in American air support to keep the enemy from overrunning its position.

American Apache attack helicopters and F-16s, as well as British fighter jets, flew low over the farms where the enemy had set up its encampments and attacked, dropping 500-pound bombs on the encampments. The Iraqi forces were still unable to advance, and they called in support from both an elite Iraqi unit known as the Scorpion Brigade, which is based to the north in Hilla, and from American ground troops.

Around noon, elements of the American Fourth Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division were dispatched from near Baghdad.

After an American helicopter was shot down at 1:30 p.m., some of those soldiers helped secure the crash site and recover the bodies of the two American soldiers killed in the crash, according to a statement by the American military. Others joined in the effort to combat the renegade militia, the statement said.

A commander in the Scorpion Brigade said the combined American and Iraqi forces killed 470 people. He also said some of the dead Soldiers of Heaven fighters were found bound together at the ankles and suggested that the chains had probably been used to keep people from fleeing and to keep them moving as one unified group.

Government estimates of the number of fighters killed ranged from 120 to 400.

An Iraqi military official said at least 25 security force members were killed in the battle.

Iraqi officials said on Monday that they had killed the leader of the militia in the weekend fighting, identifying him as a man who went by the name Ahmed Hassan al-Yamani, but whose real name was Diyah Abdul Zahraa Khadom.

However, a Shiite cleric who has had contact with the group said the real leader was Ahmad bin al-Hassan al-Basri. The cleric said he believed that Mr. Basri was alive and probably hiding near Karbala.

Mr. Basri, while unknown to the average Iraqi, is relatively well known among the clerical hierarchy in Najaf, according to several clerics interviewed for this article.

The clerics who were interviewed said that Mr. Basri was a student of Moktada al-Sadr’s father, a revered cleric, and that Mr. Basri and the senior Mr. Sadr had a split in the early 1990s.

The governor of Najaf, Asad Abu Ghalal, in an interview on national television, said government intelligence officials told him that the Soldiers of Heaven have had ties with the government of Saddam Hussein as far back as 1993. He also said that the farmland where the militia had set up camp had been bought by a former Hussein loyalist, although he said that did not initially raise concerns about the group’s intentions.

Government officials were quick to point the finger at Al Qaeda, alleging that it provided financing for the group. But numerous Shiite clerics, seeking anonymity for fear of contradicting the government, said it was highly unlikely that Al Qaeda, a Sunni group, would link up with a Shiite messianic group.

Officials in the Shiite-dominated government are loath to detail internal rivalries in their community, but in the past three years there have been several clashes between rival factions, and the deaths of two senior Shiite ayatollahs have been linked to internal struggles for dominance.

The often bloody internal rivalries have been overshadowed by the more overt Sunni-Shiite war being fought daily in Baghdad and in other mixed cities.

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