particularly gruesome from the sound of it....
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Suicide bomber in Iraq kills 59 By Khaled Farhan
25 minutes ago
KUFA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed 59 people in a crowded Iraqi market on Tuesday after luring Shi'ite day laborers aboard his minivan with an offer of casual work.
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The blast in Kufa, near Najaf, was one of the bloodiest attacks of the year and followed a gun and grenade attack on another market on Monday that killed a similar number.
Clashes broke out between police and angry crowds demanding better security after the Kufa bomb, which also wounded 132 people in the city south of Baghdad.
The bloodshed has dealt a blow to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's efforts to promote national reconciliation and avoid a slide toward sectarian civil war. Nearly 6,000 civilians were killed in May and June alone, a new U.N. report estimated.
Maliki, a Shi'ite who has offered a dialogue with some Sunni insurgent groups since he took office in April, pledged to "hunt down and punish" those responsible.
As the two-month-old, U.S.-backed coalition government struggles to put a lid on mounting sectarian anger, it is also trying to ease popular grievances with the promise of investment and better economic times ahead after decades of decline.
A bill to attract foreign capital by setting rules for investors for the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein is likely to be approved in cabinet on Wednesday and to be passed by parliament this month, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told Reuters.
Foreigners hoping to buy into Iraq's vast oil reserves, however, will have to wait a few more months for a similar law.
Police in Kufa were pelted with rocks by angry crowds, many of whom demanded that militias loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take over security there.
The explosion, some 50-100 metres from a golden-domed Shi'ite shrine, tore through the minibus shortly after it had pulled out of the market with a group of laborers aboard.
LURED ABOARD
"A man driving a KIA van with an Iraqi accent came and said: 'I need laborers'. After the laborers got on and packed the vehicle he blew it up," said witness Nasir Faisal.
"Four of my cousins were killed. They were standing beside the van. Their bodies were scattered far and wide by the blast."
Protesters gathered around the blackened mangle of vehicles. Blood-stained clothes lay amid the debris.
"We want the Mehdi Army to protect us. We want Moqtada's army to protect us," screamed a woman dressed in a black abaya gown.
Others chanted to the police: "You are traitors!" "You are not doing your job!" "American agents!"
Police then fired automatic rifles into the air to disperse the crowds and confused scenes ensued. Some civilians, who appeared to be Sadr followers, were seen carrying weapons.
A man with a bandage on his head in a Kufa hospital said: "Where are our human rights?"
The blast was one of the bloodiest since Maliki's national unity government of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds took office in May on pledges to rein in sectarian bloodshed.
Violence between majority Shi'ites and Sunnis, dominant under Saddam but now the backbone of an insurgency against the U.S.-sponsored political process, has pushed Iraq close to civil war and complicated U.S. plans to withdraw troops.
Earlier this month, a suicide truck bomb ripped through Baghdad's eastern Sadr City slum, killing at least 62 people. The area is a stronghold of Sadr, who often preaches in Kufa and is a rising political figure in Maliki's government.
The attack came a day after gunmen killed more than 50 people in Mahmudiya, near Baghdad. Najaf provincial governor Assad Abu-Kalal blamed the Kufa attack on the "criminal Baathists and terrorists of Mahmudiya."
Witnesses said the minibus had Baghdad license plates. The blast also destroyed six cars and two restaurants in the area.
Maliki has urged Iraqis to rally behind his reconciliation plan as the last hope to avert all-out war.
But Shi'ite religious and political leaders have warned that mass attacks against their community by suspected Sunni insurgents meant their calls for restraint and to avoid retaliation were being ignored.
Gatherings of poor laborers in crowded markets have become a favorite target of Sunni al Qaeda insurgents, who Iraqi and U.S. officials say are intent on sparking a civil war. |
