Winks Blog

63 + Killed, 236 Wounded In Double Car Bombing

Good morning,

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two car bombs targeting day laborers looking for work exploded within seconds of each other Tuesday on a main square in central Baghdad, killing at least 63 people and wounding scores, the government said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a member of Iraq's Shiite majority, condemned the attack and blamed it on Sunni extremists and supporters of Saddam Hussein.

In the northern city of Mosul, a television cameraman working for The Associated Press was shot to death by insurgents while covering clashes _ the third AP employee killed in the Iraq war.

The coordinated attack in Baghdad's Tayaran Square involved a suicide attacker who drove up to the day laborers pretending to want to hire them, then set off his explosives as they got into his minibus, Lt. Bilal Ali said. At virtually the same time _ 7 a.m. _ a bomb exploded in a car parked some 30 yards away.

The blasts shattered storefront windows, dug craters in the road and set fire to about 10 other cars.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said at least 63 people were killed and 236 were wounded, although some police put the number of dead as high as 71 with a lower wounded toll of 151. The different figures could not immediately be reconciled.

Ali said most of the victims were Shiites from poor areas of the capital such as Sadr City.

Iraqis gather on the square early in the morning, soliciting jobs as construction workers, cleaners and painters. They buy breakfast at stands selling tea and egg sandwiches while they wait for potential employers to drive up.

Khalil Ibrahim, 41, who owns a shop in the area, was treated at a hospital for shrapnel wounds to his head and back.

"In the first explosion, I saw people falling over, some of them blown apart. When the other bomb went off seconds later, it slammed me into a wall of my store and I fainted," he said.

Police at a nearby checkpoint fired random shots in several directions. Residents rushed to the devastated area to see if friends or relatives had been killed or wounded.

Mangled bodies were piled up at the side of the road and partially covered with paper. Two men sat on a nearby sidewalk, crying and covering their faces with their hands.

"The driver of the minibus lured the people to hire them as laborers, and after they gathered he detonated the vehicle," said another witness, Ali Hussein.

Al-Maliki condemned the attack, calling it a "horrible crime."

"Iraq's security forces will chase the criminals and bring them to justice," he said.

Parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, said the massacre targeted poor people who were trying to feed their families, "turning them into pieces of flesh."

Have a nice day.

posted by Wink @ 10:20 AM