Winks Blog

7 Killed In Motorcycle Blast, 45 Wounded, 8 Others Killed Around Country

Good Morning,

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A motorcycle rigged with explosives blew up Thursday in a crowded market in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City district, killing at least seven people and wounding 45, police said.

It was the first bombing in Sadr City since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the lifting Tuesday of a weeklong security blockade on the district.

Meanwhile, at least 119 Iraqi policemen were killed in shootings, abductions and bomb attacks last month, the Interior Ministry said Thursday, underscoring the toll Iraq's relentless violence is inflicting on the poorly trained and underequipped force.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on a trip to France that it would take his country two or three years to set up its own security forces and send U.S.-led troops home.

Scattered bombings and shootings in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq on Thursday killed at least eight people and injured 42, police said. The bodies of two men who had been bound and blindfolded before being shot execution style were found dumped in an eastern suburb of the capital.

In a brief statement, the U.S. military said Rafa al-Ithawi, also known as Abu Taha, was killed in the city 70 miles west of Baghdad on Wednesday by laser-guided weapons that destroyed his vehicle.

The U.S. military said al-Ithawi had been named an al-Qaida in Iraq emir, giving him the rank of local level commander in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency that has stubbornly battled U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies.

Al-Qaida in Iraq has sworn affiliation to Osama bin Laden and is blamed for engineering many of the most brutal incidents of sectarian violence in Iraq.

The military said al-Ithawi frequently provided haven for foreign militants who come to Iraq to carry out attacks on civilians and U.S. coalition forces.

"This and other recent operations in the region highlight the deliberate, methodical dismantlement of the al-Qaida in Iraq network and those who contribute to its illegal actions," the statement said.

The Iraqi government issued a nearly identical statement about the attack, but gave no additional details.

The U.S. military killed al-Qaida in Iraq's founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a similar airstrike in May.

Iraqi police said economics dean Jassim al-Asadi was driving with his family in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Azamiyah when unidentified assailants pulled alongside and opened fire, police Lt. Ahmed Ibrahim said.

The shooting follows the killing on Monday of geologist Essam al-Rawi, head of the University Professor's Union and a senior member of the hardline Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, which is believed to have links to the anti-Shiite insurgency raging against U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.

The murders closely followed the pattern of tit-for-tat sectarian killings that have raged through much of Iraq following attacks on Shiite holy sites in February.

Academics have also increasingly been singled out for attacks due to their relatively high public stature and vulnerability. Some professors have also been killed by students angered over poor grades or other grievances, or because of their past membership in the Baath Party of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Education Ministry says at least 154 university professors were murdered in Iraq between April 9, 2003, shortly after the U.S. invasion, and Oct. 3, 2006. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of others have fled to neighboring countries.



Have a nice day.

posted by Wink @ 9:40 AM