February 11, 2009 5:06 PM
- Text
Baby, GI Among Iraq Truck Bomb Victims
(CBS/AP)
A suicide truck bomber, his deadly payload hidden under bags of flour, crashed into a police station in a Kurdish neighborhood in the disputed city of Kirkuk on Monday. At least 15 people were killed, including a newborn girl and a U.S. soldier, and nearly 200 were wounded.
Several girls walking home from school were among those wounded in the bombing, a possible prelude to far greater violence to this oil-rich city 180 miles north of the capital. The attack came just days after the government adopted a plan to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to Kirkuk decades ago in Saddam Hussein's campaign to displace the Kurds.
Doctors worked in a scene of bloody pandemonium as wounded were brought to the emergency room. There was barely room to move. Many of those being treated appeared to be either very young children or schoolgirls, many crying with blood spattered on their clothes. Several badly mutilated dead bodies filled the back of a police pickup truck as a U.S. helicopter flew overhead.
Sarah Samad, 13, said she had just finished taking an exam and was near the school gate at the time of the explosion.
"The gate fell on my leg and broke it," she said from her hospital bed.
Bombings elsewhere in Iraq killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40, and police found the bodies of at least 35 victims of sectarian killings. The 21 bodies discovered in Baqouba, about 50 miles north of the capital, were believed to have been Shiite workers grabbed from three minibuses stopped at illegal Sunni insurgent checkpoints near the violent city. Baghdad police said they found 14 corpses, most tortured and killed execution style; all were thought to be victims of Shiite death squads.
The government plan to move Arabs — both Shiite and Sunni Muslims — out of Kirkuk was a victory for the Kurds, who have 58 seats in the 275-member Iraqi parliament and are closely aligned with the ruling Shiites. Thousands of Kurds have returned to Kirkuk after being forced out by Saddam, who accused them of siding with Iran in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
But many Arab politicians have rejected the plan, saying it would facilitate attempts by non-Arab Kurds to absorb the city and its surrounding oil riches into the ethnic group's semiautonomous region in the northeast of Iraq. The strongest opposition has come from Sunnis, who are dominant in regions that lack oil reserves and fear the Kurds won't share oil revenues.
In other developments:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday he will try to cut off funding for the Iraq war if President Bush rejects Congress' proposal to set a deadline for ending combat. The move is likely to intensify the Democrats' rift with the administration, which already contends Democrats are putting troops at risk by setting deadlines. Meanwhile, the Senate's top Republican leader dismissed as unacceptable any legislation that sets deadlines for a troop withdrawal. He called on Democrats to cut short their Easter recess so lawmakers can quickly send a final version to Bush for a veto. "This bill is not salvageable," said Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.
A Dutch businessman appealing his war crimes conviction denied Monday that he knew chemicals he sold to Saddam Hussein's regime would be used to make poison gas. Frans van Anraat, 64, is petitioning to overturn a 15-year prison sentence handed down in December 2005 for selling tons of chemicals made into mustard and nerve gas that was unleashed on Kurdish villages in northern Iraq in 1987-88 and against Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
The White House said Monday that President Bush had a videoconference with Prime Minister al-Maliki to discuss the situation in Iraq and joint efforts to improve the security environment and advance the process of national reconciliation, CBS News Radio correspondent Mark Knoller reports. During the call, both leaders agreed on the importance of the present security plan for Baghdad and other areas of Iraq and agreed that these plans must be carried out until lasting success can be achieved.
At least three people died when a car parked in a garage exploded Monday in western Baghdad. The blast happened in a mixed Sunni-Shiite area near a governmental property registration agency. The area has been a frequent target of suspected Sunni insurgents who are apparently increasing their attacks in an effort to derail the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown.
Iraq's top Shiite cleric opposes a draft law that would allow former members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party to resume government positions, the head of the committee dealing with the Baathists said. Ahmed Chalabi met with Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani on Sunday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf to discuss the draft law that would allow thousands of former Baath Party members to regain their jobs or grant them pensions if they are denied jobs they once held in the government or military.
Several girls walking home from school were among those wounded in the bombing, a possible prelude to far greater violence to this oil-rich city 180 miles north of the capital. The attack came just days after the government adopted a plan to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to Kirkuk decades ago in Saddam Hussein's campaign to displace the Kurds.
Doctors worked in a scene of bloody pandemonium as wounded were brought to the emergency room. There was barely room to move. Many of those being treated appeared to be either very young children or schoolgirls, many crying with blood spattered on their clothes. Several badly mutilated dead bodies filled the back of a police pickup truck as a U.S. helicopter flew overhead.
Sarah Samad, 13, said she had just finished taking an exam and was near the school gate at the time of the explosion.
"The gate fell on my leg and broke it," she said from her hospital bed.
Bombings elsewhere in Iraq killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40, and police found the bodies of at least 35 victims of sectarian killings. The 21 bodies discovered in Baqouba, about 50 miles north of the capital, were believed to have been Shiite workers grabbed from three minibuses stopped at illegal Sunni insurgent checkpoints near the violent city. Baghdad police said they found 14 corpses, most tortured and killed execution style; all were thought to be victims of Shiite death squads.
The government plan to move Arabs — both Shiite and Sunni Muslims — out of Kirkuk was a victory for the Kurds, who have 58 seats in the 275-member Iraqi parliament and are closely aligned with the ruling Shiites. Thousands of Kurds have returned to Kirkuk after being forced out by Saddam, who accused them of siding with Iran in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
But many Arab politicians have rejected the plan, saying it would facilitate attempts by non-Arab Kurds to absorb the city and its surrounding oil riches into the ethnic group's semiautonomous region in the northeast of Iraq. The strongest opposition has come from Sunnis, who are dominant in regions that lack oil reserves and fear the Kurds won't share oil revenues.
In other developments:
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