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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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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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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Iraq: 4 Years Later
The conflict wears on as the nation struggles to rebuild.
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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.
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Video and Galleries from Iraq After Saddam
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Iraq Photos: June 15 ? June 21
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See all 236 Commentsslight understatement. Impossible might be more apt.
The surge, the delusional White House, etc. etc.
Would you like to comment, Senator McCain??
Bush has so much blood on his hands that he must be almost drowning in it at this point.
"Mission Accomplished", George, you evil, twisted, murderous thug.
Al Qaida doesn't want us to leave, this is how they fulfill themselves. And w is making it easy, at horrible expense.
impeach w & d!ck as soon as possible...
By any other measure, it is a complete failure.
I am not demeaning the Va Tech victims or survivors in any way here, but I would just like to point out that we Americans are hypocritical, thoughtless and plain stupid.
Every single day for the last 4 *** years, kids, just like those at Va Tech, have witnessed attacks exactly like the one that happened Monday. They have seen their friends shot. They have seen family members hauled out of rooms and shot. They have seem unrelenting violence constantly. And this violence is because of America. We attacked their country and brought upon it a horror that cannot even be imagined. We cry in sorrow over the death of 33 Americans, but allow the death of 650,000 Iraqis to pass without a tear.
Iraq will be a blot on our history FOREVER. Just like Germans have the blot of the holocaust on their history, so we will have the Iraqi holocaust on ours.
May Bush, Cheney and the neocons burn in hell forever for bringing such misery to innocents and such shame to us.
Ah yes, "stay the course" part 5 is going great. Thanks Bushies!
Posted by usadvisor101
-It's great time advisor, great time. This full of sh*t Walking-Liar dared going there to give some comfort (he has never had! had he?). Would I have been a student at that VaTech school, for sure this brown-matter container would have had some holes and leaked.
-Look at what this other son of a b*tch says:
"Whatever disagreements we might have over how we got to this point in Iraq, the consequences of a failed state in Iraq %u2014 of chaos there %u2014 will adversely impact the security and prosperity of every nation in the Middle East and Gulf region."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
-Seen who's talking?, just another s.o.b.
Frustration of this American people and its stretched tolerence will result in another revolt. The type of constitutional civil war...
Go back to watching Rosie O'Lardass & The View for more Bush hating rhetoric.
Posted by Infidel_US
NO, they want us to LEAVE, al Qaida wants us to stay. You have to consider your sources better...
A thought:
The definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over then expecting a different result.
Every single word or expectation for Iraq out of the mouths of Bush, Cheny and Rumsfeld (axis of evil?) has been wrong.
If you had a stock broker that every single time told you to buy certain stocks and every time their strategy lost you money, would you keep buying? Or would you look for another strategy?
All the same arguments were made for leaving Vietnam. We left, the world didn't end, lives were spared. So will it be for Iraq.
A question for a grandmother. You probably taught your children and now your grandchildren responsibility. I ask you who governs Iraq? The Iraq government right? Ok then why should we not expect this government to take responsibility for what is happening in their own country?
How would you feel if there were people setting off bombs every day in our country and some foreign country decided that they need to come help, how would that make our US government look? They would look like irresponsible fools! Of course the government of Iraq wants us to stay, The US military is handling all the trouble in their country, they can sit back and watch.
I challenge you to notice what does happen when our troops begin to leave. The Iraq government will be begging the US to stay because they don't want to take responsibility for there country.
I personally as a tax payer don't want my tax dollars to fund the military that is doing nothing more in Iraq than babysitting.
Don't buy this "We have to fight them there or we will fight them here" rationale, we are fighting them there and they will still attack us here the first chance they get. this Administration has not been right about a single thing concerning this war yet. Right up to the "surge is working".
These chickenhawks think that supporting the troops is giving them a three month extension in Iraq.
God Bless our Troops
God Forgive George Bush
Bushism:
"I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" --asked if the tide was turning in Iraq, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006
Clearly Bu$h and Co. don't have a clue and don't want one. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been wasted, hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted and there is no reconstruction, no security, and no exit plan or end in sight.
This is Al Qaeda's dream come true.
One At Shiite Market, Others At Police Checkpoint, Near Hospital, On Minibus
Is it victory yet?
While we stay to get victory, whatever that means, the Iraqi people stay because it is their home.
I hope everyone in the world is getting Bush's message that the US won't be bullied.
Thankfully there are a whooooole lot more who dont.
Infidel,
What's the squirrel count so far today ?
It is obvious Iraqis do not support the US imposed government. So why continue wasting lives and money propping up a failed government?
When US forces leave, traitors who remain in country will be executed, including most members of the puppet government. After which, Iraqis will form a government they support, i.e., a "democracy."
Mission accomplished.
US taxpayers can thank the Bush administration for Iraq becoming a "Muslim fundamentalist nation" because that is what they will become once US forces are withdrawn. And, is what they want to be.
Infidel, you certainly have selective memory and exceptionally poor recall of facts. Just this week, half of the government officials were asked to leave by Al Sadr. They have said they want Americans out. And they do not support anyone in Iraq who works with Americans.
Bushism:
"I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" --asked if the tide was turning in Iraq, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006
There will be no real progress in Iraq until we rid ourselves of our own incompetent leadership.
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections
15. Vigorous DENIAL of all of the above!
We got in on a lie
We'll get out with the Truth!
The Iraqis don't want us in their country!
The Palestinians don't want israelis either!
Don't you get it? Colonial power policits are OVER. To control 10'000 "insurgents" you need 500'000 soldiers and even then, they won't want us.
Like Gen. Franks said: the stupidest mother ******* in the world.....
The only tragedy bigger than the VA Tech massacre...
... where thousands of our men and women, (mostly college aged) have died for absolutely no logical reason.
God bless the victims of VA Tech and the Iraq war.
you forgot one:
a penchant for homosexual or lesbian offspring
you faith professing, slave state murderous piece of dixie *****.
you're hated all around the world...
but they still love you down south.
and that's enough for you.
war, hate, arrogance, phony christian creeps...
nothing good comes out of the south!
jefferson davis lost his.
johnson lost his.
bush will lose his.
the south has lost every war they ever started.
iraq will be no different.
those idiot southerners are only good for sunday afternoon parades...
in their tight butt uniforms.
slave state, bush loving, phony christian, war making republican ******* snakes.
nothing good comes out of the south!
they've all jumped on the "it's working" bandwagon.. yea... right... sure it is...
you murdering useless pieces of cr*p..
I know know that they would never resort to chopping eachothers heads off with swords.
Posted by didntinhale at 01:14 PM : Apr 18, 2007
How about the founding fathers very LIBERAL idea of Seperation of Church and State. Couse we can't even keep that in place HERE.
I notice the US Flag is being flown at half-mast around the country today in honor of VA Tech. When will we start flying it at half-mast for our your soldiers who have been killed in Iraq?
Go back to watching Rosie O'Lardass & The View for more Bush hating rhetoric.
Posted by Infidel_US at 11:08 AM : Apr 18, 2007
What good do LIES do? SOME Iraqis want us to stay but the MAJORITY by a wide margin was us out. The fact is we have botched this situation so badly that they think we are much more to blame for their situation than anyone or anything else. That has always happened historically speaking to EVERY invader and occupier in world history. It's so easy, the Invader being the outsider, to have things go bad and have them blamed for that wrong. I just wish this little Southern Fascist had stuck to the 200 year plus policy of this nation.
Islamic group in Baghdad: %u201CGet rid of the cross or we will burn your Churches%u201D.
The Islamic group active in Dora seems to have delivered an ultimatum to the Christian community there: convert to Islam or die; moreover reports say that they have delivered a Fatwa forbidding Christians to wear the cross or make any religious gesture. It also permits the confiscation of goods and properties belonging to the Christian families who find themselves forced to flee their homes for safety at short notice.
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=9026&size=A
Posted by barbaraf4 at 01:21 PM : Apr 18, 2007
You make an EXCELLENT point and I'll make sure mine remains at half-mast until our kids are agian home. I have hope now with the Democrats... I do think they will stand their ground and force Sir Lies-A-Lot to set a date to remove them. Otherwise I just don't think he cares how many American's he kills as long as HE saves face for his horrible failed policy.
white trash, bible thumping, ignorant christian creeps.
ignorant, uneducated, bellicose, belligerent lame azz dixie trash.
i hate the south.
war, hate, arrogance, phony christian snakes.
ha,ha,ha.
nothing good comes out of the south!
Excellent point. OUR Military stood up for them, made sure they could and did vote and it's time they fought for their own freedom. We need our Military to defend OUR OWN freedoms. Bin Laden is still out there and he and the Taliban have completely rebuilt while Sir Lies-A-Lot and Cheney have been off playing God to the people of Iraq. Time to bring them home and time to put those two where they belong, behind bars.
Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for its "reconquest"
Madrid (dpa) - The emergence of a new al-Qaeda-linked organization in Northern Africa is alarming Spain, which is concerned about Islamists' calls for the reconquest of the country they regard as a lost part of the Muslim world.
http://www.eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=6283
Better take inventory dude. Most everyone in California is an immigrant from the rest of the U.S. Being from the south, I lived there for 10 years. Nice people. No enemies. You sir, however, sound like a **** with a chip. Nothing unusual about that. Lazy, half breed, joint smoking idiots that run around shouting VIVA THIS, VIVA THAT. Most of you can't even read.
Alabama born, and resident.
Go back to watching Rosie O'Lardass & The View for more Bush hating rhetoric.
Posted by Infidel_US
I've heard some dumbazz comments but this is the cherry - "they want us to remain" !
Just because 99% of them are doing the dying, IS the reason why they want it stopped - and us OUT.
Try to remove your head from your lower colon.
Bible-reading Muslim 'raped as punishment'
After raping her, Al Shawany allegedly said: "Let your Jesus help you."
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=261451
Death threats after Bible rape
A MUSLIM woman who converted to Christianity after she was allegedly raped as punishment for reading the Bible received death threats from her alleged attacker, a court has heard.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21578160-5006009,00.html
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