Winks Blog

At Least 68 Killed In Iraq

Good Afternoon,

The day after Saddam's hanging, killings continue as usual:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombings killed at least 68 people in Iraq on Saturday, including one planted on a minibus that exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad.

The attacks came hours after Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad for ordering the killings of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail in 1982. Despite concerns about a spike in unrest, Saturday's violence was not unusually high and there was no indication it was related to the execution.

The bombing at the fish market in Kufa, a Shiite town about 100 miles south of the Iraqi capital, killed 31 people and wounded 58, said Issa Mohammed, director of the morgue in the neighboring town of Najaf. The man blamed for parking the vehicle was cornered and killed by a mob as he walked away from the explosion, police and witnesses said.

Shoppers had crowded into the market to buy supplies for the four-day Eid al-Adha festival, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar for Shiites.

Television footage showed hundreds of men in traditional Arab headdresses swarming around the minibus' charred frame, toppled on its side in the street. Ambulances and fire trucks pulled up to the site, and a coffin was loaded on top of a car.

In northwest Baghdad, two parked cars exploded one after another, killing 37 civilians and wounding 76 in a mixed neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, police said.

Have a nice day.

posted by Wink @ 12:52 PM