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Four car bombings in Iraq leave 21 dead
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-25 07:39 An emboldened Iraqi insurgency staged carefully
coordinated dual bombings in Saddam Hussein's hometown and a Shiite neighborhood
of the capital Sunday, killing at least 21 people.
Lawmakers loyal to the new prime minister said he was ready to announce a
Cabinet that would exclude his interim predecessor, Ayad Allawi.
Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari had decided, some members of his
political bloc said, to shun further attempts to include members of the party
headed by Allawi, the secular Shiite politician who had served as prime minister
as the country prepared for elections Jan. 30.
A relative attends to a man, injured in a car
bomb explosion, at the al-Hakim Local Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday,
April 24, 2005. [AP] | Members of Allawi's Iraqi
List, which controls 40 seats in the National Assembly, said his party had not
been officially informed of the development. Allawi loyalists were bidding for
at least four ministries, including a senior government post and a deputy
premiership.
"I heard from the media, and some of the other assembly members told me about
it," lawmaker Hussein Shaalan told the Associated Press late Sunday. But he said
the party would continue to support the government even if excluded from the
Cabinet.
Al-Jaafari's list could be put to parliament as early as Monday, some of his
bloc said. Others indicated the Cabinet announcement would be made Tuesday. Many
such forecasts have proven wrong so far.
Many Shiites have long resented the secular Allawi, accusing his outgoing
administration of having included former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath
Party, which brutally repressed the majority Shiites and Kurds.
There had been intense pressure to end the political bickering after a marked
recent uptick in insurgent violence that many in Iraq blamed on the continuing
political turmoil nearly three months after the country's historic Jan. 30
elections, the first democratic balloting in a half century.
Iraqis inspect the site where a car bomb
exploded outside a crowded Shiite mosque in
Baghdad.[AFP] | Insurgent attacks had dropped dramatically shortly after the vote, but
spiraled upward in recent weeks as the politicians failed to name a government.
Militant violence over the weekend took at least 38 lives, including those of
three Americans.
Also Sunday, the U.S. military said it had detained four more suspects in the
downing of a civilian Mi-8 helicopter on Thursday. All 11 passengers and crew
were killed, including a survivor gunned down by insurgents. Ten suspects have
been apprehended in all, the military said.
A vehicle packed with explosives was driven into a crowd gathered in front of
a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad's western al-Shoulah neighborhood Sunday,
police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said. Minutes later, as police and residents
rushed to help the victims, a second suicide car bomber plowed into the crowd.
At least 15 people were killed and 40 wounded.
Shattered glass, pools of blood, and pieces of flesh littered the scene.
Members of Iraq's Shiite majority have become a frequent target of Sunni-led
insurgents. On Friday, a car bomb ripped through a crowded Shiite mosque in
eastern Baghdad during midday prayers, killing 12 people and wounding 22.
In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit on Sunday, two remotely detonated car bombs
exploded in quick succession outside a police academy, killing at least six
Iraqis and wounding 33, police and a hospital official said. The blasts occurred
as recruits were about to leave the station and travel to Jordan for a training,
said police Lt. Shalan Allawi.
Insurgents also attacked U.S. forces. A roadside bomb hit one convoy in
eastern Baghdad, killing one American soldier and wounding two, the U.S.
military said. Iraqi police said two civilians also were wounded in the attack.
An American sailor was killed Saturday when the Marine convoy he was
traveling with was hit by a roadside bomb in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad,
the military said.
At least 1,568 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of
the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, the country's most feared militant group, claimed
responsibility for the Tikrit and eastern Baghdad attacks in statements posted
on militant Web sites.
The group also claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb targeting a U.S.
patrol near the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. The U.S. military said no
one was hurt in that attack.
South of the capital, three insurgents were killed Sunday as the roadside
bomb they were trying to plant in the town of Mahawil exploded, said police in
nearby Hillah.
In Pakistan, a government spokesman said a Pakistan embassy official who was
kidnapped in Iraq two weeks ago was freed Sunday. Malik Mohammed Javed was
abducted April 9 after he left his residence in Baghdad to attend prayers at a
mosque. The Pakistani government said after his abduction he was in the custody
of a previously unknown Islamic militant group, Omar bin al-Khattab that had
demanded a ransom for Javed's release.
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