At Least 183 Dead In Baghdad Bombings
Suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed 183 people — the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop surge began nine weeks ago.
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:
Baghdad security has improved a bit, but the gains will be lost unless Iraqis find a way to bring minority Sunnis fully into the government, the new commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Wednesday. Navy Adm. William Fallon, who replaced Army Gen. John Abizaid as chief of U.S. Central Command last month, offered a House panel his assessment of progress and setbacks in Iraq after his first visit there. "The things I see on a daily basis give me some cause for optimism, but I have to tell you that hardly a week goes by — almost a day hardly goes by — without some major event that causes us to lose ground," Fallon said.
U.S. officials announced that last week they found 3,000 gallons of nitric acid hidden in a warehouse in downtown Baghdad. U.S. forces discovered the acid, a key fertilizer component that can also be used in explosives, during a routine search Thursday, the military said.
The U.S. military reported that a suspected insurgent was killed and eight captured in two raids north of Baghdad on Wednesday. Some of the suspects were believed linked to al Qaeda in Iraq and to a militant cell that has used chlorine in car bombings, the statement said.
Iraqi troops took charge of security Wednesday in the southern province of Maysan, a region that borders Iran and the fourth province to come under full Iraqi security control since the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Saudi Arabia is considering granting Iraq sizable financial relief by forgiving a debt of $16 billion that stems from the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, Iraqi Ambassador Samir Shakir al-Sumaidaie said Wednesday.
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.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. 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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Where are you? I thought you got my message in the other post. You could have been first!!!!!!!
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????
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????
Gates
Bravo Bob! You got it! It's called civil war !
The Bush learning curve is astounding.
Gates
Bravo Bob! You got it! It's called civil war !
The Bush learning curve is astounding.
Gates
Bravo Bob! You got it! It's called civil war !
The Bush learning curve is astounding.
Deadliest Day Since U.S. Troop Surge Began; 233 Killed Across Iraq
CARE TO COMMENT,Senator McCain???
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.
Deadliest Day Since U.S. Troop Surge Began; 233 Killed Across Iraq
CARE TO COMMENT,Senator McCain???