500 dead in Iraq bridge stampede - Health Ministry

Reuters | August 31, 2005

[SeaBiscuit]

Bridge Stampede in Iraq Leaves 650 Dead By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA The Associated Press BAGHDAD, Iraq — About 650 people _ many of them women and children _ were killed in a stampede Wednesday when panic engulfed a Shiite religious procession after rumors spread that a suicide bomber occupied the bridge they were crossing, officials said. Scores jumped or were pushed to their deaths into the Tigris River, while others were crushed in the crowd in what appeared to be the single biggest loss of life in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Tensions already had been running high in the procession in Baghdad's heavily Shiite Kazamiyah district because of a mortar attack two hours earlier against the shrine where the marchers were heading. The shrine was about a mile from the bridge. One survivor said panic ensued when a rumor spread that a suicide bomber was in the crowd. Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col Adnan Abdul-Rahman said 648 were killed and 322 injured. Most of the dead were women and children, he said. Survivors were rushed in ambulances and private cars to several hospitals and officials were scrambling to compile an accurate figure. After the collapse, bare-chested men swam through the muddy river looking for bodies. "We were on the bridge. It was so crowded. Thousands of people were surrounding me," said survivor Fadhel Ali, 28, barefoot and soaking wet after swimming in the river. "We heard that a suicide attacker was among the crowd. Everybody was yelling so I jumped from the bridge into the river, swam and reached the bank. I saw women, children and old men falling after me into the water." Health Minister Abdul-Mutalib Mohammed told state-run Iraqiya television that there were "huge crowds on the bridge and the disaster happened when someone shouted that there is a suicide bomber on the bridge." "This led to a state of panic among the pilgrims and they started to push each other and there was many cases of suffocation," he said. Earlier reports suggested that the bridge's railing collapsed, but television footage showed the green, waist-high railing undamaged. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites were marching across the bridge, which links a Sunni and Shiite neighborhood, heading for the tomb of Imam Mousa al-Kadhim, a 9th century Shiite saint. About two hours earlier, mortar shells exploded in the shrine compound, killing at least seven people. U.S. Apache helicopters fired at the attackers. After the bridge disaster, thousands of people rushed to both banks of the river searching for survivors. Television reports said about one million pilgrims from Baghdad and outlying provinces had gathered near the Imam Mousa al-Kadim shrine in the capital's Kazimiyah district for the annual commemoration of the Shiite saint's death. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, declared a three-day mourning period. Shiite religious festivals have often been targeted for attack by Sunni extremists seeking to trigger civil war among the rival communities. In March 2004 suicide attackers struck worshippers at the Imam Kadhim shrine and a holy site in Karbala, killing at least 181 overall. The head of the country's major Sunni clerical group, the Association of Muslim Sholars, told Al-Jazeera television that the disaster Wednesday was "another catastrophe and something else that could be added to the list of ongoing Iraqi tragedies." "On this occasion we want to express our condolences to all the Iraqis and the parents of the martyrs, who fell today in Kazimiyah and all over Iraq," the cleric, Haith al-Dhari, said. I don't know how reliable this is but it seems this writer wants to focus on the Sunni as the possible culprits. The bold text is mine, as this refutes all earlier reports about the bridge railing collapsing.

[notigar]

Not true. plenty here relish it.

[Peach]

Oh, no. What a horrible thing to happen.

[montag813]

I am having a hard time imagining how so many could have died.

[bobdsmith]

I dunno. Maybe because you are being a jerk

[P-Marlowe]

Yours is the single most twisted comment I have ever seen from a Freeper.

[neutrino]

Yours is the single most twisted comment I have ever seen from a Freeper.

Why, thank you. You're too kind.

By the way, Husayn bin Ali didn't really die at Karbala; no, he dressed up as a woman and ran away. He spent the rest of his life as a wine taster.

I just thought you'd like to know that.

[bnelson44]

Now Fox is saying 640 and it was caused by someone yelling there was a suicide bomber.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167906,00.html

[P-Marlowe]

600 people die running from a suicide bomber and that makes you grin, huh? Which side are you on?

[kinghorse]

Ah, the answer in the second paragraph. Another religious pilgrimage. These people need work.

[Dave Elias]

The BBC are supposed to be impartial.

[McGavin999]

What? How can anybody be on FR and be so totally uninformed?

[Let's Roll]

And I thought suicide bombings were war on the cheap - they're really cost effective now - mere rumors.

[neutrino]

What? How can anybody be on FR and be so totally uninformed?

How so? Iran is primarily shiite, just as I said. Iran doesn't seem to be our friend, just as I said.

Now I'm well aware that the sunnis are (apparently) the nexus of the insurgency within Iraq, but that doesn't mean that the shiites are our friends. Might I add that Saudi Arabia is fundamentally sunni? Yes, they follow the wahabbist viewpoint - but recall that wahabbism is merely an extreme variation of the sunni position.

Furthermore, if you take a look at Saudi Arabia, you might note that the shiites are a rather unhappy - and, arguably, suppressed - minority within the kingdom. And now, as the shiites across the border in Iraq gain ascendancy, it is entirely possible that Saudi Arabia will be destabilized.

Have you considered the implications of a shiite government in Iraq? Have you looked at the history of relations between Saudi Arabia and its substantial shia minority? Have you considered what instability in Saudi Arabia implies for global oil supplies? Are you aware that the sunnis regard shiites as near-infidels, thus guaranteeing more conflict as the sides realign?

So, tell me, please, what I'm uninformed about.

[Mr. Mojo]

DU seems to think it was an air strike

DU is hoping it was an air strike so they can have yet another reason to blame America -- their favorite pastime.

[ohioWfan]

How, then, can the demise of some number of Iraqii shiites be viewed as problematic?

Because God created them, and loves them as much as He does you and me.