Baghdad's deadliest day
2005-09-15 08:16
Baghdad - More than a dozen highly co-ordinated bombings ripped through Baghdad, killing at least 160 people and wounding 570 in the capital's bloodiest day since the end of major combat.
On Thursday, insurgents in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk detonated a roadside bomb next to a police patrol. Two officers in the car were killed and four injured, said Colonel Anwar Hassan, head of the local security unit.
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attacks in the name of Sunni insurgents, saying it was a retaliation for the rout of militants at a base close to the Syrian border.
The spasm of violence terrorised the capital for more than nine hours. The first attack, at 06:30, was the deadliest: a suicide car blast which tore through the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim neighbourhood of Kazimiyah.
Single deadliest day
In what was believed to be a new tactic, the bomber set off the explosive after calling the construction and other workers to his small van and enticing them with promises of employment, a witness said. At least 112 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded, according to Health Ministry officials.
It was the single deadliest attack the country has seen.
Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly declared "all-out war" on Shi'ites, Iraqi troops and the government in an audiotape posted on Wednesday on an internet site known for carrying extremist Islamic content.
The al-Zarqawi tape was a clear attempt, coming on the heels of the attacks, to create a climate of fear, sow deeper sectarian discord and scare Iraqis away from the October 15 referendum on a new constitution.
Iraqi forces arrested two insurgents in connection with the Kazimiyah bombing, one of them a Palestinian and the other a Libyan, Iraqi television quoted Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as saying. Al-Jaafari also said the suicide bomber was a Syrian, without offering any details how the identification was made so quickly.
The attacks came as United States and Iraqi forces pressed their offensive against insurgents in the northern city of Tal Afar and along the Euphrates River valley, striking hard at what officials have said were militants sneaking across the border from Syria.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq said in a web posting that it launched the attacks, some less than 10 minutes apart, in response to the Tal Afar offensive, which began Saturday and evicted most insurgents from the city about 80km from Syria.
At least six attacks targeted US forces, Iraqi authorities said. The US military said there were four direct attacks on Americans, with 10 soldiers wounded.
- AP