Bombers wreak carnage: 120 dead

2006-01-05 22:49

Baghdad - At least 120 people, including five United States soldiers, were killed in bomb attacks across Iraq on Thursday, fuelling sectarian tensions as the country waits to form a new government.

In Iraq's bloodiest day for months, twin suicide bombers struck the restive Sunni city of Ramadi and the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala, while a roadside bomb hit a US military patrol.

More that 200 people were also wounded in the onslaught - which politicians said was meant to impede the setting up the government of national unity in the wake of elections - to establish the first long-term parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

Savagery, sectarianism of criminals

Jawad al-Maliki, a top leader from Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's Dawa party, said: "It's an odious crime which shows the savagery and sectarianism of these criminals."

He said: "They are trying to change the results through terror."

However, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said the bombings would not affect attempts to put together a government of national unity.

He said: "Those who think such terrorist attacks will influence the political play are wrong."

Hospital officials said that in the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber wired with explosives killed at least 67 people and injured more than 100 after he blew himself up outside a police recruitment centre in Ramadi.

Vendors, pilgrims killed

Less than an hour earlier, another suicide bomber detonated his charge in the middle of a busy market area in Karbala next to the Iman Hussein shrine, killing at least 44, mainly vendors and pilgrims, and wounding 85 others.

Ambulances rushed to ferry away the dead and wounded in an all-too familiar scene of carnage. Hospital officials said a number of Iranian pilgrims were among the victims.

Karbala had been relatively quiet for the past year, but the peace was shattered on Wednesday after a car bomb exploded in the city, wounding two people.

The military said five US soldiers died after a roadside bomb hit their vehicle while on patrol, south of Karbala. It said that the patrol was not involved in rescue work.

March 2003 invasion

The latest casualties took the death toll for the US military personnel in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to at least 2 186.

Three car bombs - two of them driven by suicide bombers - also exploded in Baghdad - but only left one policeman and two Iraqi soldiers injured.

In other violence, four policemen were killed and four wounded after rebels attacked two patrols with small arms fire just outside Baquba, 60km northwest of Baghdad.

The spike in unrest came as Iraq awaited the final results of elections on December 15 after the electoral commission earlier indicated that Shi'ite-based religious parties and their Kurdish allies would be returned to power.

US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair wanted Iraq to form a new government as quickly as possible.

- AFP