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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: IRAQ: Carnage and rioting hit Karbala KARBALA, Iraq - Two months into the U.S.-led Baghdad Security Plan, at least 289 people were killed and injured across Iraq on Saturday, including 36 dead in a car bomb attack in the holy Shiite city of Karbala. The carnage of a crowd teeming with women and children set off an angry mob of hundreds against the governor and police. The morning bombing outside a bus station and marketplace ripped through vendor stands near a Shiite shrine where the grandson of the prophet Mohammed is buried. Bodies littered the street and body parts were found as far as 160 yards from the site of the explosion. Three buses of passengers were charred and storefronts lay in shambles. At least 167 people were injured in the bombing, but the death toll was expected to increase because of still-unidentified bodies and serious injuries, said Saleem Kadhim, spokesman for the Karbala health directorate. As police and ambulances approached to carry away victims, angry residents shot at them, witnesses said. The police responded, firing bullets into the air to dissipate the angry crowd. As the bullets rained down, a child and elderly man were killed, witnesses said. A man screamed, "They added new victims and don't care about our losses. It's enough." Aqeel al-Khazaali, the governor of Karbala, blamed the Baghdad Security Plan for the attack inside the relatively safe southern city. Karbala is about 50 miles south of Baghdad. "The Baghdad crackdown and the tribes in Ramadi are forcing the terrorists to leave their cities," he said. "Now Karbala is under fire from terrorists, and the central government has to take the necessary steps to help us to protect the holy city." In a phone interview Thafir al-Ani, a Sunni parliament member, said the security plan had little hope of success if it continued as a military force without a political solution. He said insurgents had learned to hit more high-profile places such as bridges and government buildings. "Gunmen and terrorist groups managed to adapt themselves and change their strategies," al-Ani said. The attack came on a day of violence in several places throughout the war-ravaged country. In Baghdad, the city was alive with mortar rounds, assassinations, gunfights and roadside bombs. At least 20 corpses, telling of sectarian violence, were reported. In the central city a car bomb detonated near Jadriyah bridge, a main thoroughfare, killing 8 and wounding 11. Also Saturday the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent umbrella group dominated by al-Qaida, claimed it had kidnapped 20 Ministry of Interior employees in northeast Baghdad. A picture was posted with uniformed men in blindfolds. They demanded the release of Sunnis from interior ministry prisoners and the officers who participated in the alleged rape of a woman in February. In Karbala, a mob of hundreds of people let out collective frustration pelting police cars and ambulances with stones, rocking the cars. Karim Hussein, 43, wept as he held his two dead sons. "Death to the governor," he shouted. "I can't understand. How did a car bomb get here to kill these people?" An old man combed through the rubble searching for his wife. "I can't find her," he cried. "I can't find her." The angry crowd chanted "Betrayers," in between outbursts of "Muqtada, Muqtada," invoking the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. A mob of about 200 mostly al-Sadr loyalists marched toward the heavily protected provincial council building, known as the "Karbala Green Zone," and hurled rocks at it before the Iraqi Army intervened to stop the crowd. "The governor and the provincial council members know how to protect themselves but they say they can't protect the city," Mohammed Abdul Hadi, 33, said. "They are betrayers and they should do something or leave." Saturday is typically the day when women visit the Shiite shrines, and at least 20 of the dead were women and children, as were at least 84 of the wounded. Jasim Shalash looked at his son Mohammed. The nine-year-old's legs were bleeding, pierced by metal shrapnel. "When the parliament was attacked, the whole world condemned the bombing," he said. "I am sure he means nothing to those who hide in the Green Zone." His frustration is one heard across Iraq as people look to the heavily fortified homes and buildings of their leaders. Outside the blast walls and coils of concertina wire that encapsulate the politicians, they are left with little protection, many said. In Baghdad, the parliament's show of solidarity on Friday was replaced by recriminations in the wake of Thursday's suicide bombing in the cafeteria of the building where it meets. The bombing killed one legislator, Mohammed Awad, and police suspect the assailant may have been a legislator's bodyguard. Samia Aziz Ahmed, a Kurdish legislator, questioned the parliament's legitimacy. "All these crimes and no results," she said. "How can we work to build a country when we have no idea what's happening and why?" McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Mohammed al Dulaimy contributed to this report.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Dear gawd those poor people.. what have 'we' done?
#2. To: Zipporah (#1)
"We"? I've drawn the line at paying $3300 a year. Let the fancy-shmanchies pay for any level of war above that.
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