Blasts Across Baghdad Kill at Least 43
10/30/2006
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and JOHN O’NEIL
NY Times
Published: October 30, 2006
BAGHDAD, Oct. 30 — At least 33 Shiite laborers were killed and 59 were wounded in a bomb blast in Baghdad today, as the American death toll in Iraq reached 100 for the month with the announcement by the military that a marine had been killed in al-Anbar province.
Four other bombs killed at least 10 people and wounded 26 around the capital today, and a geology professor who is a member of a Sunni political group was gunned down on his way to his college.
The outbreak of violence comes despite the hopes of American military officials that the killings, which increased during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, might slacken following its end last week.
The military said in a statement today that the marine died on Sunday from wounds suffered in combat in al-Anbar, the western province where the Sunni insurgency is based. October has become the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq since January 2005, when 107 troops were killed.
Also today, Britain announced that it is relocating most of the civilian staff at its consulate in the southern city of Basra to the airport, because of security concerns about the city, news services reported.
“Given the threat to the safety of civilian staff, we have decided temporarily to reduce the number of staff at our compound,” Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said.
Britain has been handing responsibility for security in the Basra region over to Iraqi forces, and the level of the violence there has risen as Shiite groups vie with one another for control.
In Baghdad, the American national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, paid an unannounced visit to the government Green Zone for a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart, Mowaffak al-Rubaie. The two men discussed ways to improve the security situation, a statement issued afterward said.
Last week, Mr. Rubaie was one of a number of top officials in the Iraqi government who took issue publicly with American pronouncements and policies. He argued for a faster pace in handing off authority from American to Iraqi forces. “We think we can do things better, and it’s the time now,” he said.
A White House spokesman, Dana Perino, denied today that Mr. Hadley’s trip was related to the strains between Washington and Baghdad. “This is a long-planned trip to the region,” she said.
On a day that saw at least six explosions across the capital, the largest came in Sadr City, the rundown neighborhood in the eastern part of Baghdad that has been the scene of some of the worst sectarian attacks by Sunni insurgents. It is also home to Shiite militias that have been linked to waves of attacks launched in reprisal.
The explosion there today struck a line of day laborers seeking work in Mudhafar Square. Iraqi officials said the bomb was hidden in a plastic bag placed in a garbage bin next to the line. One eyewitness, Abu Zeinad, told Agence France-Presse that it was the third time this year that the line had been attacked.
A spokesman for Interior Ministry, Brig. Gen. Abdel-Karim Khalaf, said that the blast was probably the work either of Al Qaeda or Sunni extremists known as takfiris, who have conducted outrageous attacks in the hope of provoking retaliation that further undermines the country’s fragile government.
“This has the fingerprints of the takfiris and Al Qaeda all over it,” he said, Agence France-Presse reported.
In addition to its continuing vulnerability to insurgent attacks, Sadr City has become the focal point of recent tensions between the American military and the Iraqi government. The district is the stronghold of Moqtada al-Sadr, an anti-American cleric who is one of the most important backers of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. American officials have repeatedly pressed Mr. Maliki to crack down on the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Mr. Sadr, which they blame for much of the sectarian violence in the capital.
According to news agencies, some of the survivors of today’s explosion said American troops were to blame, because the raids had chased away Mahdi Army militiamen who had provided security in the area.
The raids “forced Mahdi Army members, who were patrolling the streets, to vanish,” Ali Abdul-Ridha, 41, told The Associated Press from his hospital bed.
A spokesman for Mr. Sadr also put blame on the American military, according to Agence France-Presse. “The responsibility for this attack lies with the occupying forces,” said the spokesman, Hamdallah Rikabi. “Everybody knows that before this, this was a secure city, and deploying the occupier’s forces is just harming our security.”
But another survivor blamed the Mahdi Army for provoking Sunni extremists. “We are just poor people looking to make a living — we have nothing to do with any conflict,” Falih Jabar, 37, a laborer who suffered back wounds, told the A.P.
He said that if the Sunnis “have problems with the Mahdi Army, they should fight them, not us.”
Sabrina Tavernise reported from Baghdad and John O’Neil from New York.
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