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At Least 60 Killed, Over 100 Wounded in Suicide Attacks in Iraq
Two female suicide bombers have attacked Baghdad's main Shia shrine, killing at least 60 people and injuring 125 others, officials in Iraq say.
A man cries near blood-stained stretchers at a morgue in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district April 24, 2009. In a second day of major bloodshed, two suicide bombers wearing explosive vests blew themselves up at the gates of a revered Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Baghdad on Friday, killing 60 people, Iraqi police said. (REUTERS/Bassim Shati) The attack happened at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in the Kadhimiya area as people gathered for Friday prayers.
It comes a day after 84 people were killed in two separate suicide attacks in Baghdad and Baquba.
Many victims in Baquba and in Baghdad on Friday were Iranian pilgrims and the violence was condemned in Tehran.
Violence fell sharply in the last year and the latest bombing does not change this trend, but it is a worrying development, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad.
'Explosion and fire'
The bombers detonated their explosives belts within minutes of each other near two gates of the revered shrine, which was crowded with worshippers.
The howling of the wounded echoed through a nearby hospital where the victims were admitted, the hallways packed with security forces and anxious family members looking for loved ones, an AFP correspondent reports.
Sabiha Kadhim, 50, had come up from the southern Iraqi town of Diwaniya with her family, four of whom were killed in the blast.
Lying on a stretcher, her head and hand bandaged, she said: "I was near the shrine and suddenly there was a huge explosion and a fire broke out.
"I saw human body parts everywhere."
Qassim Zada, a 62-year-old Iranian pilgrim from Tehran, had come to the shrine with his wife. He now lay in hospital, his clothes soaked in blood.
"I was only a few metres [yards] away from the explosion and I don't know what happened," he said.
The shrine, in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of the capital, has been a target for insurgents in the past.
'Hateful' attack
Around 25 of those killed on Friday were Iranian pilgrims, Iraqi police said.
Most of the 56 people now known to have been killed when a suicide bomber blew up a restaurant in Baquba, Diyala Province, on Thursday were also Iranian pilgrims.
On the same day, a suicide bomber infiltrated a crowd of displaced families in Baghdad as they received supplies from police, detonating an explosives belt and killing 28 people.
At Friday prayers in Tehran, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani - the influential Iranian cleric and former president - condemned Thursday's attack on pilgrims.
"The incident yesterday was a very, very hateful example of those who harm religion in the name of religion," he said in a sermon broadcast live by Iranian radio.
"We feel sorry for the Iraqi people because such corrupt groups have penetrated into Iraq. We also criticise America for not having the serious will to preserve Iraq's security."
Meanwhile, new statistics from Iraq's health ministry say that since 2005 when violence worsened more than 87,000 Iraqis have been killed.
The figures are based on hospital and mortuary records and are seen as significant given the heated and highly politicised debate over the human cost of the war in Iraq, our correspondent says.
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9 Comments so far
Show AllThe Ethnic Cleansing of the "Surge" has blowback too.
They ran out of surge bribe money.
Yeah, when the money runs out war is a risky investment.
Right they stopped the bribes and al Qaeda is detiremined to keep the USA in TWO ENDLESS WARS.
WAR WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
War is a widow maker
A heartbreaker
A terrible menace to all
It feeds those that have
A sinister need for
Greed
War machines get a lions share of the
Treasury
Our homeless and helpless
Need OUR UNLIMITED care and concern
Tragedy never succeeds and never ends
Generation after generation
Seem to forget history
They continue to send their daughters and sons
To pick up the guns
Of war
Against others who
Themselves are afflicted
With the pestilence of those
That has that devilish need for
GREED
So on man goes to perceive
The answers
But in doing that is a waste of time
Since the very beginning
Land and others lives has been sought by those that have a need for
GREED
The Kings blood has seldom been spilled
Instead they SEND an ALARM a cry for the bold
Those that have been brow beat to think that
War is good
SAYING the battle cry is so good that ONE should GIVE their life for
WAGING this WAR for the KING
So WE fellow humans should take a better look
At the HISTORY books
And once and for all lay down our spears and swords
And all look for another day to come SOON
When we will all be RULED by the CREATOR
WHO HAS NO NEED FOR
GREED
DWIGHT BAKER ú2006
Stop killing each other, and focus on the occupier.
I've been expecting violence to increase in Iraq ever since there was talk of the Obama administration planning or supposedly planning on an eventual withdrawal from Iraq by 2011 (or whatever year it is not long after 2011), as well as the supposed plan to withdraw from Iraqi urban areas this coming June; because I have not believed they really, truly have been planning on [real] withdrawal. That could be an incorrect guess, but certainly isn't one I'd neglect.
Nor would I neglect the possibility that plenty of the "suicide" bombings in Iraq were not by real Iraqi Resistance fighters, and that so-called al Qa'ida in Iraq is not really al Qa'ida anything, except in name, very possibly being only another U.S.-made concoction, propaganda "device" for deception, .... Plenty of the so-called "suicide" bombings with cars were not suicide bombings, for there were no persons in the cars when they exploded; investigative people found. It's certainly possible that the U.S.A.'s "Salvador Option" was revived for re-use in Iraq.
I'm saddened by these new acts of violence, these attacks in Iraq, but won't blindly believe whatever the western "news" media says about these events! No damn way! They're guilty as hell for major cover-ups, far too much for any responsible citizen to be able to permit him- or her-self to blindly, naively, ... believe whatever western "news" media reports on these wars. The following piece gives a serious sampling of a very critical cover-up the "news" media has been rather criminally, treasonously contributing to. This following article is actually very important and provides several reference links.
"Torture, Iraq and 9/11
5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam".",
by Washington's Blog
Global Research, April 22, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13307
The original of the above article is linked to washingtonblog.com and I checked it, but when clicking on a link in the page for another article, NoScripts, which I use with Firefox, gave a warning about possible clickjacking (explained at the Noscripts.net website), so I'll provide an alternative link for the original article, or what seems to be a full copy of it anyway. I haven't read it yet, but noticed that it quotes words of Paul Krugman on the 9-11 Commission's report being bogus, which the above copy doesn't include, so maybe there are other differences too.
http://www.georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/04/
5-hours-after-911-attacks-rumsfeld-said.html
Below is another and related article that's important, one I just read and is short, while also containing several reference links, including to articles at salon.com and boston.com, as well as an interview between former "9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland" and democracynow.org.
"Constitutional Expert Slams 9/11 Commission", Apr 22 2009
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/04/constitutional-expert-slams-911.html
The expert is Jonathan Turley.
The interview with Senator Cleland is in video and audio formats, but given the size of the video file, which evidently is for the full Democracy Now! hour, I just (now) searched for a video clip consisting of only the portion for the interview with Senator Cleland and the following is one such clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLuZB6vJUzg
The above articles provide quotes from other U.S. government officials, and "Torture, Iraq and 9/11" is strong against Rumsfeld, while also including incriminating information about Cheney, using information from CIA, DoD, and perhaps other U.S. government sources or groups.
The 9-11 Commission was not 100% bogus, but it's report is definitely bogus, really worth only being considered as 'fiction', as GeorgeWashington blog says or explains.
People who can LIE and fiendishly connive as described in "Torture, Iraq and 9/11", f.e., can certainly be capable of claiming attacks in Iraq organised by these evil-leaning people and their obedient "workers" are "suicide bombings", Iraqi attacks on Iranians in Iraq, and so on. Just because the U.S. presidency changed from Repub. to Dem., don't let this be fooling you into believing that the U.S. administration or military or both combined, along with perhaps more, are authentically or actually planning real as well as complete withdrawal from Iraq. It's certainly possible that they are actually working, covertly of course, on trying to generate support among the population of the USA, and possibly other countries, for staying on in Iraq; maintaining this totally criminal and never justifiable war of aggression.
It's not only criminal occupation; it is continued [war]. Evidently some people don't see this as actual war anymore, haven't for years now, only treating it as occupation; but that also evidently is only because they view or understand war in a very limited way, more limited than the ways in which war happens.
I (above) mentioned "Salvador Option in Iraq" and have done so a number of times at CD, but will provide a link again on this topic. There's an index, or there used to be a year or two ago anyway, at www.BRrusselsTribunal.org . People who want to check that index out and don't find a link in the home page can use a Web search, like using Google, to search the site for the index page ... for 'Salvador Option', while perhaps adding Iraq for an additional search term. There presently are two links in the homepage with 'Salvador Option' in the link titles and both links are part of what I'm referring to; but there used to be a whole index page for this. Perhaps one of the two links, if not both, in the home page are to pages that contain the link to the full index on this topic.
All of this is [why] Iraqis have been being killed since March 2003. The same applies today and until the U.S. and other foreign forces [withdraw], totally.
I respectfully disagree with most of your ideas. Here's what we REALLY have here:
--We need to JUSTIFY our presence. So, we execute
--FALSE FLAG OPERATIONS...bombing the people and pointing fingers at ghost suicide bombers.
--To convince everyone that we had nothing to do with them, we PLANT "EVIDENCE" OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS.
Memba how we used to bomb the mosques on both sides, and call out "suicide bombings"? Divide to conquer still is a simple, EFFECTIVE AND RELIABLE tool for control.
There are plenty of willful martyrs in the Muslim world. They generally want to kill us, not their cousins or their brother's wife and children.
www.meetyourworld.com
MikeCorbeil April 25th, 2009 12:34 am
COMMENT
YOU ARE A WIRED RIGHT GOOD MAN I THINK THE CIA DOES CRAP LIKE THAT
WHY DONT WE GET RID OF THAT BUSH BUNCH OF YALE THUGS.