thedrifter
07-08-07, 07:11 AM
CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Suicide blast kills 105, levels section of village
Richard A. Oppel Jr., Ali Adeeb, New York Times
Sunday, July 8, 2007
(07-0 04:00 PDT Baghdad -- A suicide truck bomber killed at least 105 people in a single blast north of Baghdad on Saturday, police officials said, leading to further fears that insurgents who had fled intense military operations in Baghdad and Diyala are turning to more vulnerable targets nearby.
The explosives-laden truck demolished dozens of fragile clay-built houses and shops Saturday in Armili, a village of poor Shiite Turkomans about 70 miles north of Baquba in Diyala province. The Iraqi police said that in addition to the dead, at least 210 people were wounded in the blast, one of the deadliest single attacks since the start of the war.
The U.S. military also reported Saturday the deaths of nine soldiers and Marines on Thursday and Friday, eight during combat or from roadside bombs.
Witnesses in Armili described a horrific scene of people running while on fire, and others shrieking for rescuers to pull them free from beneath scores of buildings that were turned into rubble by the blast.
Most of the dead were inside the 40 homes and 20 shops that were destroyed by the blast, said Maj. Nawzad Abdullah of the Iraqi police. Some of the wounded were rushed to hospitals in Tuz Khurmato, about 15 miles away, but the city's emergency services were quickly overwhelmed, so other victims had to be sent much farther away, to Kirkuk and even to Sulaymaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Abdullah said about two-thirds of the dead were buried by their families without first being taken to the morgue or hospital because the family members were terrified that the roads leading out of the village were too dangerous and could be vulnerable to follow-up suicide bombings. By late Saturday afternoon, the Iraqi police estimated that 150 people had been released from the hospitals.
One survivor, Sukaina Abdullah, a 40-year-old housewife who suffered burns on her legs and other wounds, said at a hospital in Kirkuk that she did not know whether her family, believed to have been buried beneath the rubble of what had been their home, was alive or dead.
"I don't know the fate of my husband and son," she said. "Our house collapsed on us. The same thing happened to relatives and other people in our neighborhood. A lot of houses collapsed."
Zain al-Abadeen Abdul Hussein, a shop owner burned on his right arm and left leg, said the blast sent debris soaring into the air and set people on fire. "I saw children from my neighborhood burning," he said.
Thousands of American troops moved against nearby Baquba last month and drove out hundreds of what commanders said were fighters affiliated with the insurgent group al Qaeda in Iraq.
Before the Baquba operation, one senior American commander had estimated that as many as 500 insurgent fighters were hunkered down in the part of the city that American forces were poised to invade; after the operation, the same officer said he could account for about 110 militants, either captured or killed. Senior American commanders in Baghdad also said they believed that 80 percent of the insurgents' leadership in Baquba had escaped the siege and fled the city.
The attack in Armili came 12 hours after a suicide car bomber sped into a bustling market Friday night in Zargosh, a Shiite-dominated farming district 50 miles northeast of Baquba, killing 22 people and wounding six, according to the local police. The area has been the scene of several insurgent attacks against civilians in recent months, the Iraqi authorities say. It is populated by Arab and Turkoman Shiites and had several thousand families, but many have left.
By Saturday evening, no groups had claimed responsibility for the two blasts, but both were suicide attacks against scores of Shiite civilians, a hallmark of al Qaeda in Iraq and other extremist Sunni groups.
In a report published today in the Washington Post, senior administration officials say the Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy. As they prepare an interim report due next week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade Congress to continue supporting the war.
In a preview of the assessment it must deliver to Congress in September, the administration will report that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are turning against al Qaeda in Iraq in growing numbers; that sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders managed last month to agree on a unified response to the bombing of a major religious shrine, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter.
Those achievements are markedly different from the benchmarks Bush set when he announced his decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq. More troops, Bush said, would enable the Iraqis to proceed this year with provincial elections and pass a raft of power-sharing legislation. In addition, he said, the government of President Nouri al-Maliki planned to "take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."
Congress expanded on Bush's benchmarks, writing 18 goals into law as part of the war-funding measure it passed in the spring. Lawmakers asked for an interim report in July and set a Sept. 15 deadline for a comprehensive assessment by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador. Now, as U.S. combat deaths have escalated, violence has spread far beyond Baghdad and sectarian political divides have deepened, the administration must persuade lawmakers to use more flexible, less ambitious standards.
But anything short of progress on the original benchmarks is unlikely to appease the growing ranks of disaffected Republican lawmakers who are urging Bush to develop a new strategy. Although Republicans held the line this year against Democratic efforts to set a time line for withdrawing troops, several influential GOP senators have broken with Bush in recent days, charging that his plan is failing and calling for troop redeployments starting as early as the spring.
The Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ellie
Suicide blast kills 105, levels section of village
Richard A. Oppel Jr., Ali Adeeb, New York Times
Sunday, July 8, 2007
(07-0 04:00 PDT Baghdad -- A suicide truck bomber killed at least 105 people in a single blast north of Baghdad on Saturday, police officials said, leading to further fears that insurgents who had fled intense military operations in Baghdad and Diyala are turning to more vulnerable targets nearby.
The explosives-laden truck demolished dozens of fragile clay-built houses and shops Saturday in Armili, a village of poor Shiite Turkomans about 70 miles north of Baquba in Diyala province. The Iraqi police said that in addition to the dead, at least 210 people were wounded in the blast, one of the deadliest single attacks since the start of the war.
The U.S. military also reported Saturday the deaths of nine soldiers and Marines on Thursday and Friday, eight during combat or from roadside bombs.
Witnesses in Armili described a horrific scene of people running while on fire, and others shrieking for rescuers to pull them free from beneath scores of buildings that were turned into rubble by the blast.
Most of the dead were inside the 40 homes and 20 shops that were destroyed by the blast, said Maj. Nawzad Abdullah of the Iraqi police. Some of the wounded were rushed to hospitals in Tuz Khurmato, about 15 miles away, but the city's emergency services were quickly overwhelmed, so other victims had to be sent much farther away, to Kirkuk and even to Sulaymaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Abdullah said about two-thirds of the dead were buried by their families without first being taken to the morgue or hospital because the family members were terrified that the roads leading out of the village were too dangerous and could be vulnerable to follow-up suicide bombings. By late Saturday afternoon, the Iraqi police estimated that 150 people had been released from the hospitals.
One survivor, Sukaina Abdullah, a 40-year-old housewife who suffered burns on her legs and other wounds, said at a hospital in Kirkuk that she did not know whether her family, believed to have been buried beneath the rubble of what had been their home, was alive or dead.
"I don't know the fate of my husband and son," she said. "Our house collapsed on us. The same thing happened to relatives and other people in our neighborhood. A lot of houses collapsed."
Zain al-Abadeen Abdul Hussein, a shop owner burned on his right arm and left leg, said the blast sent debris soaring into the air and set people on fire. "I saw children from my neighborhood burning," he said.
Thousands of American troops moved against nearby Baquba last month and drove out hundreds of what commanders said were fighters affiliated with the insurgent group al Qaeda in Iraq.
Before the Baquba operation, one senior American commander had estimated that as many as 500 insurgent fighters were hunkered down in the part of the city that American forces were poised to invade; after the operation, the same officer said he could account for about 110 militants, either captured or killed. Senior American commanders in Baghdad also said they believed that 80 percent of the insurgents' leadership in Baquba had escaped the siege and fled the city.
The attack in Armili came 12 hours after a suicide car bomber sped into a bustling market Friday night in Zargosh, a Shiite-dominated farming district 50 miles northeast of Baquba, killing 22 people and wounding six, according to the local police. The area has been the scene of several insurgent attacks against civilians in recent months, the Iraqi authorities say. It is populated by Arab and Turkoman Shiites and had several thousand families, but many have left.
By Saturday evening, no groups had claimed responsibility for the two blasts, but both were suicide attacks against scores of Shiite civilians, a hallmark of al Qaeda in Iraq and other extremist Sunni groups.
In a report published today in the Washington Post, senior administration officials say the Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy. As they prepare an interim report due next week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade Congress to continue supporting the war.
In a preview of the assessment it must deliver to Congress in September, the administration will report that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are turning against al Qaeda in Iraq in growing numbers; that sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders managed last month to agree on a unified response to the bombing of a major religious shrine, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter.
Those achievements are markedly different from the benchmarks Bush set when he announced his decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq. More troops, Bush said, would enable the Iraqis to proceed this year with provincial elections and pass a raft of power-sharing legislation. In addition, he said, the government of President Nouri al-Maliki planned to "take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."
Congress expanded on Bush's benchmarks, writing 18 goals into law as part of the war-funding measure it passed in the spring. Lawmakers asked for an interim report in July and set a Sept. 15 deadline for a comprehensive assessment by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador. Now, as U.S. combat deaths have escalated, violence has spread far beyond Baghdad and sectarian political divides have deepened, the administration must persuade lawmakers to use more flexible, less ambitious standards.
But anything short of progress on the original benchmarks is unlikely to appease the growing ranks of disaffected Republican lawmakers who are urging Bush to develop a new strategy. Although Republicans held the line this year against Democratic efforts to set a time line for withdrawing troops, several influential GOP senators have broken with Bush in recent days, charging that his plan is failing and calling for troop redeployments starting as early as the spring.
The Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ellie