A suicide bomber lured a crowd of Shiite day laborers to his minivan and blew it up in Baghdad yesterday, killing 152 people and wounding more than 542 in Iraq's second deadliest bombing since the war began.
The bomber drew the men to his vehicle with promises of work before detonating the bomb, which contained up to 220kg of explosives, an Interior Ministry source said.
"There's no political party here, there are no police," Mohammed Jabbar railed at the blast site in the Shiite Muslim Khadhimiya area. "This targeted civilians, innocents. Why women and children?" he said, as bystanders shouted, "Why? Why?"
Another car bomber blew himself up in northern Baghdad, killing 11 people lined up to refill gas canisters, as a wave of bombings rocked the capital. Gunmen also dragged 17 people from their homes and killed them in Taji, a northern suburb.
More than 150 people were killed in all the attacks, which a police official said seemed to have been carefully orchestrated.
Iraq's al-Qaeda claimed it was waging a nationwide suicide-bombing campaign to avenge a military offensive on a rebel town.
A statement on an Islamist Web site often used by the Sunni Muslim militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did not mention a specific attack, but said the campaign was in reprisal for a US-Iraqi offensive in the northern town of Tal Afar.
"We would like to congratulate the Muslim nation and inform it the battle to avenge the Sunnis of Tal Afar has begun," it said.
Fears of civil war have grown ahead of an Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution for Iraq.
Iraqi government officials have accused Sunni militants of attacking majority Shiites, who swept to power in January polls boycotted by most Sunnis, in a bid to spark a civil war. Most of the victims of yesterday's attacks were Shiites.
"We gathered and suddenly a car blew up and turned the area into fire and dust and darkness," said Hadi, one of the workers who survived the attack, which happened shortly after sunrise.
Bodies lay in the street beside burned-out cars, witnesses said. Some used wooden carts to haul away the dead.
Police said at least 114 people were killed and 156 wounded in the explosion. It was the deadliest attack since July, when 98 people were killed in a blast south of the capital.
The most lethal bombing since the US-led invasion of 2003 was a suicide car bomb attack on Feb. 28 this year, which killed 125 people in Hilla, south of Baghdad.
At the nearby Kadhimiya hospital, overflowing with victims, dozens of the wounded screamed in agony as they were treated on the floor, some lying in pools of their own blood.
Meanwhile, gunmen wearing military uniforms surrounded a Sunni village 15km north of Baghdad in the pre-dawn darkness and executed 17 men, police said.
Taji police Lieutenant Waleed al-Hayali said the gunmen had detained the victims after searching the village. They were handcuffed, blindfolded and shot. The dead included one policeman and others who worked as drivers and construction workers for the US military, al-Hayali said.
The run-up to the Oct. 15 vote has worsened tensions between Iraq's main communities, Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique