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ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com, Web Site: www.assistnews.net

Tuesday, November 9, 2004

CAR BOMBS KILL EIGHT, INJURE 60 IN IRAQI VIOLENCE TARGETED AT TWO CHURCHES AND A HOSPITAL

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

BAGHDAD, IRAQ (ANS) -- Car bombs at two Baghdad churches and outside a hospital treating the victims of those attacks killed at least eight people and wounded dozens overnight as a wave of blasts struck the Iraqi capital, according to news sources monitored by ASSIST News Service (ANS). (Pictured: Car bomb targetted Al-Yarmuk hospital's emergency unit. Credit: Middle-east-online.com website).

A car bomb exploded outside St George's Catholic Church in southern Baghdad just before 6.30pm local time, followed a few minutes later by a second outside St Matthew's church.

Victims from both blasts, some carried by injured friends or relatives in torn and bloodstained clothes, were rushed to Yarmouk hospital. A doctor said at least three people had been killed and 40 injured.

A few hours later, a suicide car bomber ploughed into four police cars parked outside the hospital entrance, killing at least five policemen, police said.

Several more explosions echoed across the city later in the night, but there was no immediate word on casualties. The wave of bombings swept Baghdad as U.S. Marines began their full-scale offensive to capture the rebel Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah, 50 km west of the capital. (Pictured: Car bombs were detonated outside two Baghdad churches. Credit: aljazeera.net web site).

Rebels fighting Iraq's interim government and its US backers have stepped up attacks around the country since US forces began building up for their assault on Fallujah, seen as the epicenter of the insurgency.

Iraq's Christian minority has also been targeted. Five churches were hit in a string of bombings in October that seemed designed to intimidate the Christian community, already shaken by a series of attacks that killed several people in August.

The Aljazeera.com website said after bomb blasts at the two chuches, another car bomb exploded outside the hospital entrance, completely damaging four police cars that were parked near the hospital, and killing at least five policemen, police said.

Other explosions were heard overnight in the Iraqi capital, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

Middle-east-online.com said the series of suicide car bombs that rocked the Iraqi capital killed 13 and left several wounded in a Baghdad hospital as US and Iraqi forces stormed the insurgent enclave of Fallujah.

The website said at least 13 people were killed and about 60 injured when a car bomb exploded outside the emergency unit of one of Baghdad's main hospitals late Monday, medical officials said on Tuesday.

"We have received nine dead -- seven policemen, one nurse amd a member of the personnel department at the hospital as well as 42 injured," said Dr Hadi Abdel Karim at the Yarmuk hospital in the southwest of Baghdad where the attack occurred.

The capital's City Hospital received another four dead and 14 wounded, said a doctor there, who asked to remain anonymous.

Scores of cars were destroyed when a stolen police car laden with explosives exploded outside Yarmuk on Monday evening, severely damaging the front of the emergency unit.

Sify.com/news reported that a car bomb that exploded outside the emergency unit of one of Baghdad's main hospitals southwest of the Iraqi capital caused an unknown number of deaths, an official at the Yarmuk hospital said.

Patients, staff and guards were among the victims, said the official, who declined to give his name.

Hours early, Yarmuk hospital received three dead and 45 wounded after suspected car bombs exploded just minutes apart outside two churches in Baghdad.

A report posted at Defenselink.mil/news, from the United States Dept. of Defense (American Forces Press Service) said two suspected vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices detonated within minutes of each other, targeting two Christian churches in southern Baghdad, Iraq.

The first blast exploded near the St. George Church in southern Baghdad at about 6:25 p.m., according to Multinational Force officials. Initial reports from this incident indicated there were no casualties from the attack.

The second suspected car-bomb blast detonated at about 6:30 p.m., less than a mile east of the first blast, outside the St. Matthew Church in southern Baghdad. Casualty figures had not yet been reported from the scene of this attack, but Iraqi police and emergency medical personnel responded, officials said.

A spokesman for Task Force Baghdad condemned the attacks.

"These are not military operations targeting military objectives. These are simply terrorists attacking innocent people, ... innocent Iraqis," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. James Hutton, the chief spokesman for the 1st Cavalry Division.

Officials said that no multinational forces were wounded or killed in either attack.

Iraqi police and medics said a car drove into several police vehicles parked in front of the Yarmouk hospital late on Monday.

"A car bomb exploded at the gate of the emergency department, there were a lot of people wounded and dead," an official at the Yarmouk hospital told the AFP news agency.

The hospital was treating victims of two earlier blasts near two Christian churches, in which at least three people died and more than 40 were hurt.

No services were taking place at the time in the churches.

Just hours early, the hospital received the three dead and dozens of injured after two suspected car bombs went off in rapid succession outside St George's church and St Matthew's Church in the southern neighborhood of Dora.

All the casualties are said to have been people from nearby houses.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on Iraq's tiny Christian community -- at least 14 people have died in the past three months.

Iraq's estimated 650,000 Christians -- mostly Chaldeans, Assyrians and Catholics -- make up about 3 percent of the country's population.

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) website said Iraq's Christian minority was the target in recent attacks.

Reuters news agency concurred that Iraq's Christian minority has been targeted. Five churches were hit in a string of bombings in October that seemed designed to intimidate the Christian community, already shaken by a series of attacks that killed several people in August.

** Michael Ireland is an international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News Service of Garden Grove, CA. Michael immigrated to the United States in 1982 and became a US citizen in Sept., 1995. He is married with two children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station.

** You may republish this story with proper attribution.