Survivors rushed to help passing drivers caught in the blast
Posted on 06/17/2004 12:54:58 AM PDT by RWR8189
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Survivors rushed to help passing drivers caught in the blast
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At least 25 people have been killed in a car bomb attack at an Iraqi army recruitment centre in western Baghdad.
The car, packed with artillery shells, blew up at the gates of the centre, housed in an old airport. The blast was heard throughout the city.
According to reports the car drove into a crowd of about 100 people queuing to volunteer, before exploding.
Debris was scattered along a four-lane highway. At least one shell could be seen lying on the blood-stained road.
Some 70 people have been injured; medical officials said they were being taken to the city's Yarmouk and Karkh hospitals.
Locals targeted
US 1st Cavalry Regiment officer Colonel Mike Murray, at the scene of the attack, said it was the work of a suicide bomber.
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He said some 12 people had been killed, but officials at the hospitals where the casualties are being sent have been speaking of a much higher death toll.
Many of the injured are reported to have been badly mutilated by the force of the explosion.
"All of the victims who came here are poor people trying to earn a living. They wanted to volunteer to support their families," said Yas Khudair, a member of the Iraqi security forces.
"There were no Americans nearby when the explosion took place."
Increasing tension
The heavily-fortified Muthenna airport in the west of the city is also used as a military base for US troops.
 The same recruitment centre was attacked in February
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The BBC's Barnaby Philips in Baghdad says military installations connected with the new Iraqi security forces are being hit again and again as insurgents in the country strengthen their resistance ahead of the 30 June transition of power.
The same recruitment centre was hit by a car bomb five months ago when up to 47 people died.
But then again...knowing the Arabs, they'll blame the Jooooo's.
They seem to be blaming the right people according to anything I have heard published about these sort of blasts lately.
They've got to get all these foreign fighters. I truely believe that the suicide bombers are from outside the country.
They are going to have to block off the road far from the entrance to these places and let the applicants cue up away from where the cars can drive.
It will come to pass that ALL in Iraq will understand the evil involved with these "death worshipers" and any question as to whom to trust will soon be a non-issue.
After one of the car bombings last week (in which several Iraqis were killed), the crowd started yelling "Down with America", proceeded to destroy three Land Rovers, and the ensuing anti-American riot had to be put down by a show of U.S. forces.
So, no, they don't get it yet.
How many Iraquis have to be killed before they start growing a spine and fighting back with these suicide buttheads?
Car Bomb Blast Kills 35 People in Iraq
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A sport-utility vehicle packed with artillery shells blew up Thursday in a crowd of people waiting to volunteer for the Iraqi military, killing at least 35 and wounding 138.
The explosion in Baghdad, the deadliest attack since a bombing outside another recruiting center in February, was the latest in a surge of attacks on U.S. coalition forces and their Iraqi allies ahead of the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.
The blast scattered bodies and debris across a four-lane highway outside Baghdad's Muthanna airport, which is used as a base by both the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the U.S. military. The explosion could be heard for miles and sent a cloud of smoke over the city.
No American or Iraqi troops were injured, U.S. Army Col. Mike Murray said.
Many of the victims had just gotten off a bus at about 9 a.m., Murray said. About 100 volunteers were trying to enter the recruiting center when the sport-utility vehicle crashed into the crowd, said Capt. Hani Hussein of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.
"We were standing waiting for our turn to register," Rafid Mudhar told The Associated Press from his hospital bed in Karama Hospital. "All of a sudden, we heard big explosion and most of those standing fell on the ground including me."
He said he was unconscious for a while, then managed to reach a nearby ambulance.
Bloody bodies covered in dust were scattered around the blast site. One dead man lay prostrate in the center of a highway median.
Iraqi security forces tried to help the injured as blood-soaked victims were loaded into ambulances and cars. U.S. troops milled around the scene.
At least one artillery shell could be seen lying on the road. Insurgents in Iraq often fashion bombs out of artillery shells and other military ordnance.
Health Ministry official Saad al-Amili said at least 35 people died and 138 were injured, and that the toll was likely to increase.
The bombing was the bloodiest single attack since a car bomb killed 47 people on Feb. 11, also outside an army recruiting center in Baghdad.
Surrounded by Western security guards and Iraqi police, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi visited the scene of Thursday's blast and described it as a "cowardly attack."
"We are going to face these escalations," he said. "The Iraqi people are going to prevail and the government of Iraqi is determined to go ahead in confronting the enemies, whether they are here in Iraq or whether they are anywhere else in the world."
Yas Khudair, a member of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, said all the victims were "poor people" who "wanted to volunteer to support their families."*
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the string of recent attacks would not affect the handover of sovereignty.
"The terrorists used to justify their terror saying it was against the occupation. The occupation is going to end in 12 days time; now the terrorists appear to be trying to stop the transfer of power to the Iraqi people themselves.
"We and the Iraqi people will not be deterred. The transfer of power will take place. Iraqis will take control of their lives."
In other violence, an explosion next to a convoy of water trucks killed one Hungarian soldier and wounded another Thursday morning 40 miles northeast of the Hillah base south of Baghdad, the Hungarian Defense Ministry said. It was Hungary's first military death in Iraq.
British soldiers clashed with Shiite fighters loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in southeastern Iraq on Thursday after coalition troops detained one of the militia's leaders, witnesses and the British military said.
No one was hurt, a British military spokesman said.
Three British military vehicles were fired upon early Thursday with small arms fire and a rocket propelled grenade in two separate attacks in the city of Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, a British military spokesman said. None of the vehicles was damaged, the spokesman, who spoke on customary condition anonymity, said.
The attacks occurred after British forces detained militia leader, Ahmed Hachi. A British military spokesman said three people were arrested just after midnight Wednesday. He did not identify those arrested.
According to the witnesses, the fighting lasted about an hour and a shop was burned.
The trouble began only one day after al-Sadr took steps to honor an agreement meant to end fighting with American forces in the holy cities of Nafaj and Kufa, ordering fighters who did not live in those twin cities to return home.
On Wednesday, a rocket slammed into a U.S. logistics base near Balad, Iraq, on Wednesday, killing three U.S. soldiers and wounding 25 other people, including two civilian workers.
An explosion before dawn Wednesday damaged a pipeline carrying crude oil from Iraq's southern fields to the Basra oil terminal in the Persian Gulf. Iraqi engineers had diverted crude shipments to that pipeline after another was bombed two days ago.
Insurgents also killed Ghazi Talabani, the official in charge of protecting the northern oilfields, in an ambush in Kirkuk. Gen. Anwar Amin of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps said three gunmen attacked Talabani's car after his bodyguard briefly left the vehicle in a crowded market.
The bodyguard was wounded. Talabani was the third Iraqi official slain since Saturday.
"What you are seeing here is effectively a terrorist war against Iraq's critical infrastructure, including the oil infrastructure," coalition spokesman Dan Senor told CNN. "It is an effort to basically, economically, impoverish the Iraqi people."
President Bush, in a speech beamed live to U.S. forces worldwide, said democracy was being born in Iraq despite the killings and pipeline attacks.
"We have come not to conquer, but to liberate people and we will stand with them until their freedom is secure," Bush told several thousand troops at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., home of the U.S. Central Command.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Enemies of freedom killed brave volunteers who could have chosen to work elsewhere in the newly free Iraq, but chose to risk their lives for their country - in spite of the quote *chosen by an AP reporter.
If they don't, after the Americans leave, next door will come to their house and take care of them.
There are parts of Los Angeles where the same thing would have happened.
We aren't all the same, though, and we oughtn't think that they are, either.
Bump!
I believe you're right about that but in any case we need to know if they do have a tipping point because it will necessarily affect policy toward the ME in the years to come.
Bump !
Bump!
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Six months? A year? Five?
Not to belittle the report but I heard on (believe it or not) a CBS radio news report (the only one I can get at work) that all this is doing is upping the number of Iraqis that want to join so that they can take the scum out and safeguard their families.
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