A suicide bomber pulled his minibus into a busy market yesterday, lured laborers onboard with the promise of jobs and then blew himself up, killing at least 59 people in one the bloodiest attacks in Iraq this year.
The blast in the Shiite city of Kufa wounded 132 people and sparked clashes between police and angry protesters, dealing a fresh blow to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's efforts to promote national reconciliation and avoid a slide toward civil war.
Maliki, a Shiite who has offered a dialogue with some Sunni insurgent groups since he took office in April, pledged to "hunt down and punish" those responsible.
PHOTO: AFP
Police at the scene were pelted with rocks by angry crowds, many of whom demanded that militias loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take over security in Kufa, near the holy city of Najaf, 160km south of Baghdad.
The blast occurred about 7:30am across the street from the gold-domed mosque in Kufa, police Captain Nafie Mohammed said.
It happened shortly after the minibus had pulled out of the market with a group of laborers.
"He came asking for workers. When they boarded the minibus the vehicle exploded," a witness said.
Protesters gathered around the blackened mangle of vehicles. Blood-stained clothes were scattered amid the debris.
"We want the Mehdi Army to protect us. We want Moqtada's army to protect us," a woman dressed in a black abaya screamed.
Others chanted to the police: "You are traitors! You are not doing your job! American agents!"
Police then fired automatic rifles into the air to disperse the crowds and confused scenes ensued. Some civilians, who appeared to be Sadr followers, were seen carrying weapons.
"It is very chaotic now. The police are shooting in the air and the crowds are running," a reporter at the scene said. "Ambulances are racing around town."
A man with a bandage on his head in a Kufa hospital said: "Where are our human rights?"
The blast was one of the bloodiest since Maliki's national unity government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds took office in April on pledges to rein in sectarian bloodshed.
Violence between majority Shiites and Sunnis, dominant under former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, but now the backbone of an insurgency against the US-sponsored political process, has pushed Iraq close to civil war and complicated US plans to withdraw troops.
Earlier this month, a suicide truck bomb ripped through Baghdad's eastern Sadr city slum, killing at least 62 people. The area is a stronghold of Sadr, who sometimes preaches in Kufa and is a rising political figure in Maliki's government.
The attack came a day after gunmen killed more than 50 people in Mahmudiya, near Baghdad.
Najaf Governor Assad Abu-Kalal blamed the Kufa attack on the "criminal Baathists and terrorists of Mahmoudiya."
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS