Truck Bomb Hits Baghdad Mosque, and 61 Are Killed
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
nytimes.com
( Don't believe anyone that says this "surge" is working. We can't even secure Baghdad in this civil war. )
BAGHDAD, June 19 — A suicide bomber barreled a truck filled with cooking gas and explosives into a square bordered by a large Shiite mosque in the heart of Baghdad on Tuesday, just as worshipers were finishing midday prayers. The Interior Ministry said at least 61 people were killed and 130 wounded.
The attack came as American forces had begun a large-scale assault on Al Qaeda strongholds outside the capital where, they say, many of these vehicle bombs are manufactured. The timing seemed intended to demonstrate that the insurgents could still strike with near impunity, blindsiding the American security crackdown in Baghdad.
The powerful explosion destroyed a part of the mosque and engulfed a line of minivans and an adjacent parking area in flames. The toll was expected to climb as bodies were counted and some of the wounded died.
“It was like an electrocution,” said Najim Abdul Wahid, 45, a carpenter who was working in the square at the time. “I saw a flash. When I was able to stand up again, I saw many charred bodies in the streets. People were screaming, calling for help. I saw many people burning inside their cars. Charred bodies mixed and melted with charred cars.”
Many Iraqis, beleaguered at every turn, said they saw the bomb as an attempt to aggravate sectarian strife and as one more piece of evidence that the Americans could not protect them from extremists. Many of those who live near the site of the destruction said that they had concluded that the Americans must be helping the suicide bombers.
“The Americans know everything, they can do everything, they can repair the space shuttle without touching it, why do they let these things happen here in Iraq?” said Abu Muhammad, 55, one of the custodians of the bombed Khalani Mosque.
“We think the Americans want these things to happen in Iraq, to keep things like this,” he said, gesturing to the office of the mosque’s imam in which the walls and ceiling had collapsed, raining hundreds of bricks into the room, crushing the imam’s desk and chairs. The imam survived because he had already left the building when the bomb detonated.
Baghdad has suffered many ghastly suicide bombs but this one struck at the soul of a working-class neighborhood, which for as long as anyone can remember has had a mix of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, who have lived side by side, worshipped at each other’s mosques and mourned each other’s losses.
Worried about the growing sectarianism around them, the imams of the nearby Sunni Arab Ghilani Mosque and the Khalani Mosque, which was bombed Tuesday, started encouraging people last week to attend each other’s mosques for the weekly Friday Prayer.
Jalal Jaff, a Sunni Kurd, who lives just behind the street where the bomb exploded and raced to the scene to pull people out of burning cars, turned his head away this evening as he passed the parking lot with more than a dozen destroyed cars, only their charred frames left, the rubber completely burned off their tires.
“He is a paid terrorist, not a human being,” he said. “The families will never know which body belongs to their relatives. They were mutilated, they had no faces.”
Like most of the people in the neighborhood, Mr. Jaff blamed Al Qaeda, a term used by Iraqis to refer generally to terrorists. The group operating in Iraq known as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia includes many Iraqis but has some foreign leadership.
“Al Qaeda is like an octopus with many arms and hands,” he said. “This bombing was a challenge to the American and Iraqi army; they cannot get rid of these terrorists.”
Others in the neighborhood went further, accusing the Americans of helping Al Qaeda, which most people believe is responsible for the majority of the suicide bombings.
A man who identified himself only as Qassim, some of whose friends were killed in the large open parking lot across from the mosque, shouted “The Americans finance Al Qaeda, they secure places and routes for them to do this.”
But others said they saw the bombing as an effort by religious extremists to inflame sectarian divisions. “People here realize that there is a conspiracy to sow hatred between us,” said Mr. Jaff.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki echoed that sentiment in a statement on Tuesday. “Today’s crime near the Khalani Mosque that killed and wounded tens of innocents is another proof of the determination of the Saddam-Takfiri alliance to stir sectarian strife,” the statement said. Takfiri is the word used for extremist Sunni Muslims, who view even Shiite Muslims as heretics.
“The government and security forces are committed to strangling those groups and hitting them by sticking to our national unity which is the only target of these cowardly crimes,” the statement continued.
Military officials and diplomats warn that car bombs are likely to remain a potent weapon for militants. In a recent interview, a senior American military official said that in response to the intensified effort to root out Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia he expected militants to retaliate with “spectacular attacks.”
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman in Baghdad, said the military believed most of the car bombs were being made in rural areas, where they are more easily hidden. But he did not discount that there were others already in Baghdad.
“I don’t want to say how many, but there likely are some in the city,” Colonel Garver said.
The bomb on Tuesday was so powerful that people blocks away felt the shock. While it caused mostly carnage, Mr. Wahid, the carpenter, experienced what seemed to be a small miracle.
As he was putting the finishing touches on a wooden structure depicting old Baghdad houses, the blast threw him into a central fountain; it saved his life.
“Out of seven colleagues working with me, I only saw one colleague survived and others were lying on the ground,” he said.
Abu Muhammad, the mosque custodian, shakily unlocked the gate to the mosque’s two-story library, a repository of manuscripts and Koranic commentaries as well as bound newspaper copies from as much as 50 years ago.
He gestured feebly at the room: heavy tomes were scattered like leaves on the floor, the second story of the library had partly collapsed and a few stray pages of manuscripts, covered in flowing Arabic calligraphy, lay on the floor. “The Shia are a peaceful people,” he said. “Why is this happening?”
Three American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Monday and Tuesday, the American military announced in a statement. One was killed in Diyala, where a major operation is underway to clear out extremists from Baquba, the provincial capital, and surrounding areas.
In Baghdad 21 bodies were found on Tuesday and mortar shells killed people in at least three neighborhoods. A barrage of mortar shells also struck the fortified Green Zone at sunset, setting off high pitched sirens. There were no immediate reports of any casualties, but typically they are not announced right away.
In Samarra, where 2,000 national police officers have taken up positions, a civilian was shot and two others were wounded.
Muhammed Abd al-Sattar contributed reporting from Baghdad, and employees of The New York Times from Diyala, Samarra and Kirkuk.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company |
