"66 Killed in Car Bombing at Baghdad Market"
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
(07-01) 03:18 PDT BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --
A parked car bomb exploded at a popular outdoor market Saturday in a
Shiite slum in Baghdad, killing at least 66 people and wounding dozens,
authorities said. It was the bloodiest attack to hit Iraq since the death
of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The blast, which occurred around 10 a.m. when the Sadr City market was
packed with shoppers, destroyed the stalls where food and clothes are
peddled and sent up a plume of gray smoke. Flames shot out the windows of
several scorched cars.
Ambulances rushed to the scene and carried the victims to hospitals, where
men cradled crying babies as doctors bandaged them. Rasoul Zaboun, an
official from the Imam Ali Hospital in Sadr City, said 66 people were
killed and 87 wounded.
Police Col. Hassan Jaloob also said 22 shops and stalls were destroyed,
along with 14 vehicles.
Angry residents swarmed around the wreckage, with several young men
chanting as they rocked the burned out hulk of the car that apparently
held the explosives.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack. But car bombings and
suicide attacks against Shiite civilians have often been blamed on
al-Qaida in Iraq, which al-Zarqawi led until he was killed in a U.S.
airstrike June 7.
Al-Zarqawi's death has not brought a halt to the attacks. At least 631
Iraqi civilians and security forces were killed between June 8 and June
30, according to Associated Press figures. That includes 25 people killed
Monday in a bicycle bombing in Baqouba.
Also Saturday, gunmen kidnapped a Sunni female member of parliament in a
Shiite area of the capital, officials said.
Lawmaker Tayseer Mashhadani was traveling from nearby Diyala province in a
three-car convoy to attend a parliament session Sunday in Baghdad when her
party was stopped by gunmen in the east of the city, officials said.
Hamdi Hassoun, an official with the Iraqi Islamic Party branch in Diyala,
said Mashhadani was stopped at a checkpoint manned by about 10 armed men
in civilian clothes. After checking her identity card, the gunmen asked
her and her bodyguards to step out, then forced them into other cars and
drove them away, Hassoun said, adding that one bodyguard managed to
escape.
Mashhadani is a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is part of the
Iraqi Accordance Front, a Sunni bloc that holds 44 seats in the 275-member
parliament.
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, blamed the kidnapping on sectarian
tensions, which threaten to plunge the country into civil war.
Iraqi police also found a grave of several men who were apparently shot to
death more than a month ago in Baghdad. Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said police had
recovered at least six badly decomposed bodies in the grave, located in a
Baghdad area notorious for sectarian killings.
The violence came after a relatively calm day in Baghdad amid a four-hour
driving ban aimed at preventing suicide bombs during Friday prayers. It
underscored the difficulties faced by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as he
tries to curb rampant sectarian and ethnic attacks with strict security
measures and a 24-point national reconciliation plan.
Al-Maliki, meanwhile, left for a whirlwind trip to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait
and the United Arab Emirates to seek support for his reconciliation
initiative, which includes an amnesty for the mostly Sunni insurgents.
The prime minister also was expected to brief the Sunni leadership of
those three countries on his efforts to deal with the divisions between
Shiites and Sunnis. Iraq's neighbors in the Persian Gulf fear sectarian
tensions will spill over into their countries, which are dominated by
Sunnis but have large Shiite minorities.
In other violence Saturday, according to police:
_ A former senior police officer under Saddam Hussein's regime was killed
in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving his house in Baqouba. Gunmen also
opened fire on a barber shop in Baqouba, wounding four people, including
two children.
_ Iraqi soldiers found the bodies of three soldiers who were abducted
Friday, as well as an unidentified man, near the northern city of Kirkuk.
Two other soldiers were still missing.
_ Gunmen killed a policeman in a drive-by shooting in the center of
Kirkuk.
Copyright 2006 AP
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