BAGHDAD, April 18, 2007
At Least 183 Dead In Baghdad Bombings
Deadliest Day Since U.S. Troop Surge Began; 233 Killed Across Iraq
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Play CBS Video Video Has The Troop Increase Helped? Initially, the troop increase in Iraq worked - there was less violence and militiamen became less visible. Now, sectarian killings are on the rise again and bombers are back. Marti Seemungal reports.
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Video Deadly Bombs Rip Baghdad Only On The Web: Over 150 people are dead in Baghdad after four separate bombs detonated in different neighborhoods across the city. Elisabeth Smick reports.
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Residents flee an explosion in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, April 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Ali Abed)
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The scene after an explosion in Sadr City, April 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Ali Abed)
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Interactive Iraq: 4 Years Later The conflict wears on as the nation struggles to rebuild.
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Photo Essay Iraq In Pictures A daily diary with scenes of the latest attacks and snapshots from the effort to rebuild a nation.
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Interactive The Fundamentals Of Islam Learn about the Muslim religion and find out where the largest Muslim populations live in the U.S. and around the world.
Late Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of the Iraqi army colonel who was in charge of security in the area around the Sadriyah market where at least 127 people died and 148 were wounded in one of the bombings.
With streets and bodies blown apart and death all around, it's impossible to imagine that the bomb site was once the crowded Sadriyah market, reports CBS News reporter Martin Seemungal.
It was one of 5 deadly bombings in Baghdad in less than 8 hours, most in Shiite areas.
Nationwide, the number of people killed or found dead on Wednesday was 233, which equaled the highest death toll since The Associated Press began recording daily nationwide deaths in May 2005.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the bombings "horrifying" and accused al Qaeda of being behind them.
The market is situated on a side street lined with shops and vendors selling produce, meat and other staples. It is also about 500 yards from a Sunni shrine.
About an hour earlier, a suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, the capital's biggest Shiite Muslim neighborhood and a stronghold for the militia led by radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The explosion killed at least 41 people, including five Iraqi security officers, and wounded 76, police and hospital officials said.
Black smoke billowed from a jumble of at least eight incinerated vehicles that were in a jam of cars stopped at the checkpoint. Bystanders scrambled over twisted metal to drag victims from the smoldering wreckage as Iraqi guards staggered around stunned.
Earlier, a parked car exploded near a private hospital in the central neighborhood of Karradah, killing 11 people and wounding 13, police said. The blast damaged the Abdul-Majid hospital and other nearby buildings.
The fourth explosion was from a bomb left on a minibus in the central Rusafi area, area, killing four people and wounding six others, police said.
In other developments:
U.S. officials had cited a slight decrease in sectarian killings in Baghdad since the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown was launched Feb. 14. But the past week has seen several spectacular attacks on the capital, including a suicide bombing inside parliament and a powerful blast that collapsed a landmark bridge across the Tigris River.
In Israel, Gates said the military had anticipated that al Qaeda terrorists and other insurgents "would attempt to increase the violence in order to make the plan a failure or to make the people of Iraq believe the plan is a failure."
"Obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point: These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They're killing their countrymen," he said at a news conference in Tel Aviv with his Israeli counterpart, Amir Peretz.
Meanwhile, to the west of the city, U.S. troops killed five suspected insurgents and captured 30 others in a raid in Anbar province, a day after police uncovered 17 decomposing corpses beneath two school yards in the provincial capital.
The raid took place early Wednesday near Karmah, a town northeast of Fallujah in Anbar, which has been a stronghold for Sunni insurgents.
American forces raided a group of buildings suspected of being used by militants and found explosives inside one of them, the military said in a statement. A helicopter was called in and dropped precision-guided bombs on the buildings, it said.
The soldiers came under fire and shot back, killing five Iraqis and wounding four others, the statement said. The wounded were taken to a military hospital and remained in U.S. custody. Twenty-six other people were detained as well, the military said.
The bodies found a day earlier at school yards in Ramadi, Anbar's provincial capital, were discovered after students and teachers returned to the schools a week ago and noticed an increasingly putrid odor and stray dogs digging in the area, police Maj. Laith al-Dulaimi said.
Ramadi had been a stronghold of Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda fighters until recently, when U.S. forces in the region and the Iraqi government successfully negotiated with many local tribal leaders to split them off from the more militant insurgent groups.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 236 Comments
- Karlimhof,
Where are you? I thought you got my message in the other post. You could have been first!!!!!!! - Reply to this comment
- Sounds nice and peaceful to me.
- Reply to this comment
- JUST ANOTHER DAY IN IRAQ:
223 Iraq1's were killed, hundreds wounded, in at least four bombings on Wednsday.
Admiral William Fallon, said that the U.S. is losing ground each day in Iraq.
Robert Gates said the insurgents are killing Iraqi's, men, women, children. He failed to mention that 65 AMERICAN TROOPS have been killed so far this month.
White House spokesman Dana Perino tried to say what Admiral Fallon said, is consistant with what the White House and the Administration in general has been saying.
Glad to hear things are going well in Iraq???? - Reply to this comment
- JUST ANOTHER DAY IN IRAQ:
223 Iraq1's were killed, hundreds wounded, in at least four bombings on Wednsday.
Admiral William Fallon, said that the U.S. is losing ground each day in Iraq.
Robert Gates said the insurgents are killing Iraqi's, men, women, children. He failed to mention that 65 AMERICAN TROOPS have been killed so far this month.
White House spokesman Dana Perino tried to say what Admiral Fallon said, is consistant with what the White House and the Administration in general has been saying.
Glad to hear things are going well in Iraq???? - Reply to this comment
- "Obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point: These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They're killing their countrymen."
Gates
Bravo Bob! You got it! It's called civil war !
The Bush learning curve is astounding. - Reply to this comment
- sure looks like the surge is working!!!!! not.
- Reply to this comment
- "Obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point: These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They're killing their countrymen."
Gates
Bravo Bob! You got it! It's called civil war !
The Bush learning curve is astounding. - Reply to this comment
- "Obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point: These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They're killing their countrymen."
Gates
Bravo Bob! You got it! It's called civil war !
The Bush learning curve is astounding. - Reply to this comment
- At Least 183 Dead In Baghdad Bombings
Deadliest Day Since U.S. Troop Surge Began; 233 Killed Across Iraq
CARE TO COMMENT,Senator McCain??? - Reply to this comment
World news org. are not writing this story with a Shiite/Sunni slant in regards to actually carried out the bombings.If this is written with this type of conformity in the Iraqi press then it is adding to the violence unless the other news org. in Iraq have divulged more information than CBS has.All of this inside a fortnight since the protest and Sadr's cabinent resigning.
CBS news and there sources place blame on certain groups for the attacks that occur on what basis? Where is the evidence that specific groups do these attacks? A attack on Shiites has to be the result of the Sunnis or Al Queda? A attack on Sunnis has to be a attack from the Shiites?Certain individuals that are commanding the groups all want the same thing regardless of who they sacrifice and that is control of the nation and its wealth from the oil.In other words Shiites can jointly attack not only Sunnis but fellow Shiites and vice versa.By shifting the blame from one group to another instead of identifying the individual commanders of these groups that have ordered the attacks it perpetuates a constant equivalent retaliation.- Reply to this comment
- At Least 183 Dead In Baghdad Bombings
Deadliest Day Since U.S. Troop Surge Began; 233 Killed Across Iraq
CARE TO COMMENT,Senator McCain??? - Reply to this comment
World news org. are not writing this story with a Shiite/Sunni slant in regards to actually carried out the bombings.If this is written with this type of conformity in the Iraqi press then it is adding to the violence unless the other news org. in Iraq have divulged more information than CBS has.All of this inside a fortnight since the protest and Sadr's cabinent resigning.
CBS news and there sources place blame on certain groups for the attacks that occur on what basis? Where is the evidence that specific groups do these attacks? A attack on Shiites has to be the result of the Sunnis or Al Queda? A attack on Sunnis has to be a attack from the Shiites?Certain individuals that are commanding the groups all want the same thing regardless of who they sacrifice and that is control of the nation and its wealth from the oil.In other words Shiites can jointly attack not only Sunnis but fellow Shiites and vice versa.By shifting the blame from one group to another instead of identifying the individual commanders of these groups that have ordered the attacks it perpetuates a constant equivalent retaliation.- Reply to this comment
- "Obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point: These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They're killing their countrymen," he said at a news conference in Tel Aviv with his Israeli counterpart, Amir Peretz.
Gates
What an enlightening statement Mr. Gates - you have realized that it's a civil war now ! What an amazing learning curve the Bush administration has! - Reply to this comment
- Yup - SURE glad things are SO MUCHER BETTER in Iraq now that John McCain has been there and enlightened us. As bad as the tragedy at Virginia Tech was, they experience the same thing many times over in Iraq EVERY single day. If you consider that the US has ten times the population of Iraq, and roughly 100 people are killed in the sectarian violence (that the Bushies STILL refuse to call Civil war) it is more like they have a Virginia Tech massacre EVERY HOUR. I don%u2019t recall the same level of violence before our idiot-in-chief brought the Iraqis FREEDOM, LIBERERTY, DEMOCRACY, or whatever the euphemistic term-of-the-week used by the morons who got us into this mess. Bet they are REALLY glad that Bush freed them over there.
- Reply to this comment
- "Obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point: These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They're killing their countrymen," he said at a news conference in Tel Aviv with his Israeli counterpart, Amir Peretz.
Gates
What an enlightening statement Mr. Gates - you have realized that it's a civil war now ! What an amazing learning curve the Bush administration has! - Reply to this comment
- "Obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point: These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They're killing their countrymen," he said at a news conference in Tel Aviv with his Israeli counterpart, Amir Peretz.
Gates
What an enlightening statement Mr. Gates - you have realized that it's a civil war now ! What an amazing learning curve the Bush administration has! - Reply to this comment
- "Obviously the level of fatalities today is a horrifying thing. But I think it illustrates another point: These terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children who are Iraqis. They're killing their countrymen," he said at a news conference in Tel Aviv with his Israeli counterpart, Amir Peretz.
Gates
What an enlightening statement Mr. Gates - you have realized that it's a civil war now ! What an amazing learning curve the Bush administration has! - Reply to this comment
- Note to Senator McCain's campaign people:
Tell the old *** to admit things are bad in Iraq. This just doesn't happen at the local mall in Arizona. - Reply to this comment
- Amazing. The most killed in a single day since the surge began and it is buried on the back page of the news while the media milks every angle of the mass murder of 32 people and the suicide of the gunman. People who are gung ho for death, destruction and mayhem in Iraq under the guise of "giving them freedom and do not even flinch at the numbers of dead and wounded men, women, children and babies reported DAILY for 4 years, can somehow become super emotional about the deaths of 33 due to not so rare American style violence.
33 vs 233? Not even close, eh America?
Orwell was right in animal farm. "of course all animals are equal, but some animals are MORE equal than others"
RIP all who are falling these days on this, and the other side of the world due to our penchant for mayhem and violence--cloaked as a just cause. - Reply to this comment
