BAGHDAD, 5 February 2007 — More bombings shook Baghdad yesterday a day after a massive blast tore through a crowded market, killing 130 people in the second deadliest attack in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. The latest bombings killed at least 15 people, including four policemen, security sources said.
The US military yesterday revealed that four US helicopters which crashed in the past two weeks killing a total of 20 troops and private security guards had been shot down by insurgents.
US military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said it appeared as if the four helicopters had taken “some kind of anti-Iraqi ground fire” which brought them down.
Yesterday’s attacks, which follow a week of bombings in mainly Shiite areas, came ahead of a massive security operation by a combined US-Iraqi force aimed at stabilizing the violence-wracked city.
Security sources said Saturday’s blast, which also wounded more than 300, was caused by a suicide bomber who blew up his truck in Baghdad’s central Sadiriya market in a mainly Shiite district.
Embattled Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki blamed the attack on Sunni Arab followers of executed President Saddam Hussein.
The devastation caused by the bomb was apparent yesterday, the long, narrow street where the Sadiriya market is situated still littered with debris and rubble from dozens of gutted shops.
A steel balcony railing trailed to the ground like a twisted grey ribbon as shocked residents picked through the rubble against an apocalyptic background. Buildings looked as if they had been hit by artillery or air strikes.
The blast was the worst attack since coordinated car bombings in the Shiite district of Sadr City last Nov. 23 killed at least 202 people. Yesterday, Iraqi soldiers sealed off the blast site as angry Sadiriya residents expressed their fury at the government and its ally the US. “Why they are targeting this place again and again? Just because we are Shiites,” one resident said.
“All the 13 families from these two buildings were annihilated,” volunteer Haider Al-Atbi told AFP, pointing at two collapsed buildings. Sadiriya, a Shiite stronghold, made an easy target for Sunni insurgents.
As if to ram home their message, insurgents exploded more bombs in the bloodied capital yesterday, killing another 15 people just days after a US intelligence report described parts of the Iraq conflict as a civil war. A police patrol in the Al-Qasra district was one target of yesterday’s roadside bomb attacks, with four policemen killed and another four wounded, security sources said.
Another car bomb near a bus station left four people dead and seven wounded, and two employees of cellular telephone company Ateer were ambushed and shot dead.
The government pointed the finger at militants infiltrating from neighboring Syria, with which Iraq restored diplomatic relations only late last year. “What we see on the streets of Baghdad, 50 percent of it is coming from Syria,” government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said. “I confirm that 50 percent of the murders and bombings are by Arab extremists from Syria.” In Damascus, an official source called Dabbagh’s comments “contrary to reality and aimed at harming relations between Iraq and Syria that Damascus wants to strengthen and develop.”
