At Least 101 Were Killed in Joint Attacks on Kurdish Groups (Irbil Update)

MSNBC ^ | Feb. 03, 2004 | MSNBC

[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.
/snip/

The PUK video shows only the back of the bomber’s head as he joined the line. The man, apparently in his 20s or 30s, shook hands with one of the Irbil office’s deputy chiefs, then stepped forward and put his hand in that of another, Shakhwan Abbas.

“That’s when he blew himself up,” said Azad Jundiyani, head of the PUK’s 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.
/snip/

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 Laden’s 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 Hussein’s 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. Army’s 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.
/snip/

[XHogPilot]

This is an update regarding Sunday's Irbil PUK/KDP bombings.

[nuconvert]

Thanks for the update

[nuconvert]

pong

[XHogPilot]

Ping
Irbil Bombing update

[blam]

Saw the video on Fox News but they didn't know which one in the video was the perp.

[VOA]

At Least 101 Were Killed in Joint Attacks on Kurdish Groups (Irbil Update)

"This is the sort of thing that happens when we don't have the Vichy French,
the Krauts, and the United Nations Dictators Social Club helping us out!"
--likely reaction from the Democratic Presidential hopefuls, with a few
embellishments from VOA

"Only monsters would commit this sort of act against peaceable civilians. We will
hunt them down and judge/kill them, no matter the cost."
--The Republican Presidential candidate for 2004.

[AdmSmith]

The cleric.

[F14 Pilot]

Thanks for the updates.

[PGalt]

Thanks fort the update.

[leadpenny]

Thanks for the ping.