September 17, 2004
BAGHDAD —
A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-packed vehicle near a row of police
cars blocking off a bridge in central Baghdad, killing at least five people and
wounding 20, officials said. The attack came hours after U.S. jets pounded the
insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, leaving at least 44 dead.
It was the
second car bombing this week targeting Baghdad police forces, part of a stepped
up campaign of violence to thwart U.S-backed efforts to strengthen the Iraqi
security forces and bring stability to the country ahead of January
elections.
The attack came in the middle of a busy market day, with
thousands of shoppers in the area. A half-dozen police cars were parked at the
bridge when a driver pulled up. Officers ordered him to stop, but he kept
advancing and exploded his vehicle in the middle of the parked cars, said
policeman Ammar Ali said.
"I was thrown outside my car," said another
policeman, Ali Jabar, who was being treated for wounds to his face and hand at
the city's main Medical City hospital. He blamed insurgents waging a 17-month
campaign against Iraqi authorities and the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
"By attacking Iraqi police, they think that they will be sent to heaven, but by
God's will, they are now melting in hell," Jabar said from his hospital bed.
The Iraqi Health Ministry said at least five people were killed and 20
wounded in the midday explosion. Police fired shots afterward to disperse the
crowd, and shoppers streamed from the scene.
"I saw human flesh and
blood in the street, then I fled," said Mouayad Shehab.
Later in the
day, a series of explosions rocked central Baghdad, though the cause or exact
location of the blasts was not immediately clear.
The police vehicles
had been helping to seal off the area around Haifa street, where U.S. and Iraqi
forces had raided suspected insurgent hideouts in the morning, sparking a
gunbattle.
The sweep arrested 63 suspects, including Syrians, Sudanese
and Egyptians, and seized cashes of weapons including rockets, grenades and
machine guns, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim. There was no
immediate word on casualties.
West of Baghdad, an initial wave of U.S.
airstrikes late Thursday targeted a compound in Fazat Shnetir, about 12 miles
south of Fallujah, where militants loyal to Jordanian-born terror mastermind Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi were meeting to plot attacks on coalition forces, the military
said in a statement.
Militants who survived the strikes sought refuge
in nearby villages, but U.S. forces said they quickly broke off an offensive to
hunt them down in an effort to avoid civilian casualties.
Residents of
one village, Fazat Shnetir, could be seen digging communal graves today to bury
the dead in groups of four.
Earlier today, in Fallujah, U.S. warplanes
unleashed strikes on a cluster of houses believed to be used by members of
Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group, the military said.
Blood covered the
floors of the Fallujah General Hospital as doctors struggled to cope with the
casualties, many brought to the hospital in private cars with ambulances
overwhelmed. Relatives pounded their chests in grief and denounced the United
States.
Health Ministry spokesman Saad al-Amili said at least 44 people
were killed and 27 injured in the Fallujah strikes. He said 17 children and two
women were among the wounded. Hospital officials said women and children were
also among the dead, but exact figures were not immediately available.
Religious leaders switched on loudspeakers at the Fallujah mosque, calling on
residents to donate blood and chanting: "God is great."
The military
said intelligence reports estimated that up to 60 suspected insurgents may have
been killed. U.S. forces, however, have not patrolled inside Fallujah since
ending a three-week siege of the city that left hundreds dead. Insurgents have
only strengthened their grip on Fallujah since then, regularly mounting attacks
against Marine positions and military convoys on the city's outskirts.
Iraq has seen a surge of violence in the past week that has killed more than 250
people nationwide, as insurgents persist with kidnappings and spectacular
bombings aimed at driving out the United States and its allies and embarrassing
the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
In the latest
abductions, gunmen grabbed two Americans and a Briton in a dawn raid Thursday on
their home on a leafy Baghdad street -- a bold abduction that underlined the
increasing danger for foreigners in the embattled capital.
The U.S.
Embassy identified the Americans kidnapped Thursday as Jack Hensley and Eugene
Armstrong; the name of the British man was not disclosed. All three worked for
Gulf Services Co., a United Arab Emirates-based construction company. "They
were doing work under contracts with them in Baghdad," State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said.
More than 100 foreigners have been
kidnapped, some in a bid to collect lucrative ransoms. Many have been
executed.
Early today, police found the corpse of a man they believed
to be a Westerner about 40 miles north of Baghdad. The body was pulled from the
Tigris River near the central Iraqi village of Yethrib, said Capt. Hakim
al-Azawi, the head of security at Tikrit's Teaching Hospital.
The man,
described as tall and well built with blonde hair, had been shot in the back of
the head. His hands were cuffed behind his back.
At least five other
Westerners are currently being held hostage in Iraq, including an Iraqi-American
man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters, both of whom have
dark hair.