Militants strapped a pair of mentally retarded women with explosives and blew them up by remote control in two pet bazaars on Friday, killing at least 91 people in the deadliest day since Washington began pouring extra troops into the capital last spring.
Brigadier General Qassim al-Moussawi, Iraq's chief military spokesman in Baghdad, said the women had Down syndrome and may not have known they were on a suicide mission.
The tactic would support US claims that al-Qaeda in Iraq may be increasingly desperate and running short of able-bodied men willing or available for such missions.
As of early yesterday, Iraqi officials were unable to break down the higher death toll in the two bombings. The police and interior ministry officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said the bombings showed that a resilient al-Qaeda has "found a different, deadly way" to try to destabilize Iraq.
"There is nothing they won't do if they think it will work in creating carnage and the political fallout that comes from that," he said in an interview at the US State Department.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the bombing in Iraq proved al-Qaeda was "the most brutal and bankrupt of movements" and would strengthen Iraqi resolve to reject terrorism.
Earlier, officials had said the first bomber was detonated about 10:20am in the central al-Ghazl market.
Four police and hospital officials said at least 46 people were killed and more than 100 people were wounded.
Local police said the woman wearing the bomb sold cream in the mornings at the market and was known to locals as "the crazy lady."
The weekly pet bazaar had been bombed several times during the war; but with violence declining in the capital, the market had regained popularity as a shopping district and place to stroll on Fridays, the Muslim day of prayer.
But this Friday offered a scene of carnage straight out of the worst days of the conflict. Firefighters scooped up debris scattered among pools of blood, clothing and pigeon carcasses.
The attacks were the latest in a series of violent incidents that frayed a gossamer of Iraqi confidence in the permanence of recent security gains.
The US military in Iraq issued a statement that shared "the outrage of the Iraqi people, and we condemn the brutal enemy responsible for these attacks, which bear the hallmarks of being carried out by al-Qaeda in Iraq."
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani confirmed the death toll was about 70 and said the attacks were the work of committed by terrorists motivated by revenge and "to show that they are still able to stop the march of history and of our people toward reconciliation."
But Navy Commander Scott Rye, a US military spokesman, gave far lower casualty figures -- seven killed and 23 wounded in the first bombing, and 20 killed and 30 wounded in the second.
He confirmed, however, both attacks were carried out by women wearing explosives vests and said the attacks appeared coordinated and likely the work of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
While involving women in such deadly activity violates cultural taboos in Iraq, the US military has warned that al-Qaeda is recruiting women and young people as suicide attackers because militants are increasingly desperate to thwart security measures. Syria also has reportedly tightened its border with Iraq, a main transit point for incoming foreign bombers.
Women in Iraq often wear abayas, the black Islamic robe, and avoid thorough searches at checkpoints because men are not allowed to touch them and there are too few female police.
While astonishingly brutal, the use of the mentally disabled in suicide bombings is not unprecedented in Iraq. In January 2005, Iraq's interior minister said that insurgents used a disabled child in a suicide attacker on election day. Police at the scene of the bombing said the child appeared to have Down syndrome.
Many teenage boys were among the casualties in the al-Ghazl bombing on Friday, officials said.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
RSS