Posted on 02/03/2004 4:32:27 PM PST by XHogPilot
Video Captures Images of Iraq Suicide Bomber
At Least 101 Were Killed in Joint Attacks on Kurdish Groups
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 2:06 p.m. ET Feb. 03, 2004
IRBIL, Iraq - A video camera captured images of a man shaking hands with a Kurdish official seconds before blowing himself up in one of the two suicide bombings during Muslim holiday celebrations that killed 101 people. Kurds blamed Ansar al-Islam, a militant group allegedly linked to al-Qaida, for the attacks.
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The PUK video shows only the back of the bombers head as he joined the line. The man, apparently in his 20s or 30s, shook hands with one of the Irbil offices deputy chiefs, then stepped forward and put his hand in that of another, Shakhwan Abbas.
Thats when he blew himself up, said Azad Jundiyani, head of the PUKs media department.
The death toll had risen to 101 from a previous estimate of 67, a spokesman for the U.S.-led authority in Iraq said Tuesday. He said 133 people were wounded, fewer than previous accounts of more than 200, attributing the drop to confusion at the time of the attacks.
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U.S., Kurds blame Muslim extremists No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, the bloodiest in Iraq in six months. But Kurdish and U.S. officials blamed Muslim extremists particularly Ansar al-Islam, an armed group that operates in the Kurdish enclave and is believed allied with Osama bin Ladens al-Qaida.
All indications point to the involvement of Islamic terrorists with al-Qaida connections, Barham Salih, prime minister of the PUK-dominated sector of the Kurdish region, said by telephone from Washington.
Ansar al-Islam, or Helpers of Islam, is a group of several hundred Kurdish militants who have vowed to establish an independent Islamic state in the north. It was formed in 2000 and began stepping up its activities in October 2001.
Kurdish officials say more Ansar fighters have entered Iraq since Saddam Husseins fall.
Our information indicates that al-Qaida was behind this ugly terrorist act, Kosrat Rasul Ali, the No. 2 man in PUK, told The Associated Press.
Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the U.S. Armys 1st Armored Division, told reporters that the Irbil bombings, along with a Jan. 18 attack in the capital that killed 25 people, were different from the sort of hit-and-run style of Saddam loyalists thought to be behind anti-U.S. attacks in Baghdad and central Iraq.
It concerns us that it could be another enemy, a different enemy, a foreign-influenced enemy, a terrorist network enemy, he said in Baghdad.
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(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
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