Allied Journal


Suicide Blast Kills 6 Near Baghdad Hotel
12 Oct 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq  - A suicide attacker, stopped from reaching a hotel full of Americans, detonated his car bomb on a busy commercial avenue Sunday, killing six bystanders, wounding dozens and terrorizing the heart of this tense city.

A witness said a guard shot at the approaching car, apparently stopping it 50 yards short of the Baghdad Hotel, the closely guarded home to officials associated with the U.S. occupation.

Members of Iraq's 25-seat interim Governing Council are also believed to be staying in the hotel. One, Mouwafak al-Rabii, told Al-Jazeera satellite television he suffered a slight hand injury.

Elsewhere in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims staged a religious festival in the holy city of Karbala, stirring religious fervor as a young, radical cleric seeks to challenge the U.S.-led coalition and the Governing Council.

The suicide car bombing came four days after another in the northern Baghdad slum of Sadr City killed at least 10 people at a police station. A string of unsolved bombings beginning in early August, including an attack on U.N. headquarters here, has killed more than 100 people.

The six killed Sunday were all Iraqis, said U.S. Army Col. Peter Mansoor of the 1st Armored Division. Al-Kindi Hospital was treating 32 wounded, four in critical condition, said Dr. Ahmed Mustafa, of the hospital. The attacker also was killed.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, quickly issued a statement on the attack, saying, ``We will work with the Iraqi police to find those responsible and bring them to justice.''

The hotel sits at the foot of a side street perpendicular to central Saadoun Avenue. A 15-foot-tall wall of concrete barriers guards the intersection where the street meets the avenue. Witnesses said the suicide car sped up the wrong side of Saadoun and suddenly veered behind the barrier.

``The car was in front of us, a 1990 Toyota Corolla,'' said Sabah Ghulam, 37. ``He suddenly turned into the hotel. ... A policeman shot at him four times, and then there was the explosion.''

Ghulam said the driver was as light-skinned, clean-shaven and did not look like an Iraqi.

The car ``was traveling at high speed,'' said another witness, Sevan Armin, 33, who had a slight head injury. ``The guards at the gate fired on it. The car hit the concrete blast barrier and exploded.''

The force of the 12:45 p.m. explosion blew down a half-dozen sections of the barrier, and shattered brick walls up to the third floor above the site. Windows were blown out of buildings as far as three blocks away. The blast also rattled the windows of the Palestine Hotel, home to many international journalists, a quarter-mile away.

U.S. troops and Iraqi police swiftly surrounded the scene, as ambulances ferried out the wounded. U.S. helicopters circled overhead. Mansoor said no one was seriously injured at the hotel, and the hotel's security shield worked as designed.

Saad Hamid, 41, owner of a nearby shop, said police caught a would-be car bomber at the same spot six weeks ago before he could detonate his explosives. Authorities then erected the blast wall at the end of the street.

In his statement, Bremer said, ``The terrorists know that the Iraqi people and the coalition are succeeding in the reconstruction of Iraq. They do not share the vision of hope for this new Iraq. They will do anything, including taking the lives of innocent Iraqis, to draw attention away from the extraordinary progress made since liberation.''

The massive religious festival Sunday in Karbala marked the birthday of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the last of 12 Shiite leaders who disappeared in the 9th century but who devout Shiites believe will return to rule the world.

The peaceful celebrations came as a radical cleric, Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr, seeks to draw supporters to his movement to oppose the U.S. occupation.

On Friday, the 30-year-old cleric told followers he had founded a rival government to the Governing Council and urged Iraqis to express their support for ``our new state'' through peaceful demonstrations.

Last week, his followers clashed with the U.S. military in Baghdad's Sadr City, a 2 million-resident slum. The battle killed two American soldiers and at least one attacker.

Al-Sadr's newly founded militia - the Imam al-Mahdi Army - challenges a U.S. military ban on carrying arms in public without a license.

Popular mostly among the poor, Al-Sadr holds sway in Sadr City, Iraq's largest Shiite enclave. Formerly called ``Saddam city,'' the slum was renamed in honor of the young radical's deceased father, a beloved and respected cleric.

Sheikh Hassan al-Zargani, an al-Sadr aide, said reaction within the Shiite community would determine al-Sadr's future strategy.

``It is the determination of the people,'' al-Zargani said in Karbala. ``They will decide whether they want a new government, a new rule, whether they want the Governing Council, or whether they want to elect new ministers.''

The religious challenge also comes at a time of strain between the Americans and the Iraqi Governing Council over the issue of Turkish troops in the country. Last week, the Turkish Parliament approved sending peacekeepers, a moved hailed by a Bush administration desperate for help in stabilizing Iraq after a war the Americans launched in March.

Turkey would become the first major Muslim country to approve sending troops to Iraq without requiring that the United States first turn control over to the United Nations.

But the Iraqi Governing Council rejected the Turkish proposal, expressing fears that peacekeepers from neighboring countries could interfere in Iraq's internal affairs. Turkey has long battled an ethnic Kurdish insurgency, and Kurds in northern Iraq fear that Turkish troops could turn on them.

Meanwhile in Tikrit, two U.S. military police were slightly injured in a blast Sunday just outside the main U.S. Army base, witnesses said.

Separately, the 4th Infantry Division reported that a U.S. soldier was wounded when his convoy came under small arms fire and grenades around Tuz, 60 miles south of the northern city Kirkuk.

U.S. troops chasing the attackers detained three people and uncovered a weapons cache that included numerous rocket propelled grenade launchers and a submachine gun, said spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle.

Soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division also arrested three suspects in an overnight raid that followed a series of mortar attacks Saturday evening against the Tikrit army base.

The area around Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown and a hotbed of anti-American sentiment, has a high rate of attacks against U.S. troops. Raids in the area often target those suspected of organizing or financing the attacks on coalition forces.

BAGHDAD, Iraq  - A suicide attacker, stopped from reaching a hotel full of Americans, detonated his car bomb on a busy commercial avenue Sunday, killing six bystanders, wounding dozens and terrorizing the heart of this tense city.

A witness said a guard shot at the approaching car, apparently stopping it 50 yards short of the Baghdad Hotel, the closely guarded home to officials associated with the U.S. occupation.

Members of Iraq's 25-seat interim Governing Council are also believed to be staying in the hotel. One, Mouwafak al-Rabii, told Al-Jazeera satellite television he suffered a slight hand injury.

Elsewhere in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims staged a religious festival in the holy city of Karbala, stirring religious fervor as a young, radical cleric seeks to challenge the U.S.-led coalition and the Governing Council.

The suicide car bombing came four days after another in the northern Baghdad slum of Sadr City killed at least 10 people at a police station. A string of unsolved bombings beginning in early August, including an attack on U.N. headquarters here, has killed more than 100 people.

The six killed Sunday were all Iraqis, said U.S. Army Col. Peter Mansoor of the 1st Armored Division. Al-Kindi Hospital was treating 32 wounded, four in critical condition, said Dr. Ahmed Mustafa, of the hospital. The attacker also was killed.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, quickly issued a statement on the attack, saying, ``We will work with the Iraqi police to find those responsible and bring them to justice.''

The hotel sits at the foot of a side street perpendicular to central Saadoun Avenue. A 15-foot-tall wall of concrete barriers guards the intersection where the street meets the avenue. Witnesses said the suicide car sped up the wrong side of Saadoun and suddenly veered behind the barrier.

``The car was in front of us, a 1990 Toyota Corolla,'' said Sabah Ghulam, 37. ``He suddenly turned into the hotel. ... A policeman shot at him four times, and then there was the explosion.''

Ghulam said the driver was as light-skinned, clean-shaven and did not look like an Iraqi.

The car ``was traveling at high speed,'' said another witness, Sevan Armin, 33, who had a slight head injury. ``The guards at the gate fired on it. The car hit the concrete blast barrier and exploded.''

The force of the 12:45 p.m. explosion blew down a half-dozen sections of the barrier, and shattered brick walls up to the third floor above the site. Windows were blown out of buildings as far as three blocks away. The blast also rattled the windows of the Palestine Hotel, home to many international journalists, a quarter-mile away.

U.S. troops and Iraqi police swiftly surrounded the scene, as ambulances ferried out the wounded. U.S. helicopters circled overhead. Mansoor said no one was seriously injured at the hotel, and the hotel's security shield worked as designed.

Saad Hamid, 41, owner of a nearby shop, said police caught a would-be car bomber at the same spot six weeks ago before he could detonate his explosives. Authorities then erected the blast wall at the end of the street.

In his statement, Bremer said, ``The terrorists know that the Iraqi people and the coalition are succeeding in the reconstruction of Iraq. They do not share the vision of hope for this new Iraq. They will do anything, including taking the lives of innocent Iraqis, to draw attention away from the extraordinary progress made since liberation.''

The massive religious festival Sunday in Karbala marked the birthday of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the last of 12 Shiite leaders who disappeared in the 9th century but who devout Shiites believe will return to rule the world.

The peaceful celebrations came as a radical cleric, Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr, seeks to draw supporters to his movement to oppose the U.S. occupation.

On Friday, the 30-year-old cleric told followers he had founded a rival government to the Governing Council and urged Iraqis to express their support for ``our new state'' through peaceful demonstrations.

Last week, his followers clashed with the U.S. military in Baghdad's Sadr City, a 2 million-resident slum. The battle killed two American soldiers and at least one attacker.

Al-Sadr's newly founded militia - the Imam al-Mahdi Army - challenges a U.S. military ban on carrying arms in public without a license.

Popular mostly among the poor, Al-Sadr holds sway in Sadr City, Iraq's largest Shiite enclave. Formerly called ``Saddam city,'' the slum was renamed in honor of the young radical's deceased father, a beloved and respected cleric.

Sheikh Hassan al-Zargani, an al-Sadr aide, said reaction within the Shiite community would determine al-Sadr's future strategy.

``It is the determination of the people,'' al-Zargani said in Karbala. ``They will decide whether they want a new government, a new rule, whether they want the Governing Council, or whether they want to elect new ministers.''

The religious challenge also comes at a time of strain between the Americans and the Iraqi Governing Council over the issue of Turkish troops in the country. Last week, the Turkish Parliament approved sending peacekeepers, a moved hailed by a Bush administration desperate for help in stabilizing Iraq after a war the Americans launched in March.

Turkey would become the first major Muslim country to approve sending troops to Iraq without requiring that the United States first turn control over to the United Nations.

But the Iraqi Governing Council rejected the Turkish proposal, expressing fears that peacekeepers from neighboring countries could interfere in Iraq's internal affairs. Turkey has long battled an ethnic Kurdish insurgency, and Kurds in northern Iraq fear that Turkish troops could turn on them.

Meanwhile in Tikrit, two U.S. military police were slightly injured in a blast Sunday just outside the main U.S. Army base, witnesses said.

Separately, the 4th Infantry Division reported that a U.S. soldier was wounded when his convoy came under small arms fire and grenades around Tuz, 60 miles south of the northern city Kirkuk.

U.S. troops chasing the attackers detained three people and uncovered a weapons cache that included numerous rocket propelled grenade launchers and a submachine gun, said spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle.

Soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division also arrested three suspects in an overnight raid that followed a series of mortar attacks Saturday evening against the Tikrit army base.

The area around Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown and a hotbed of anti-American sentiment, has a high rate of attacks against U.S. troops. Raids in the area often target those suspected of organizing or financing the attacks on coalition forces.



 

 


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