BAGHDAD, June 4, 2008
Baghdad Truck Bomb Kills 18
A Truck Loaded With Rockets Explodes Near Iraqi Police General's Home; 3 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Unrelated Attack
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An Iraqi girl stands in front of destroyed houses after a suspected car bomb explosion, in the Ash Sha'b neighborhood of northern Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, June 4, 2008. The explosion occurred near the Baghdad home of an Iraqi police general, killing at least 16 people and wounding 50 others, the police said. Wednesday's suicide bombing was the deadliest such attack in Baghdad since early March. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
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A U.S. military spokesman said the blast appeared to have been an accident that occurred as Shiite militiamen were transporting the weapons through a densely populated neighborhood of northern Baghdad - possibly to fire at a nearby American base.
Iraqi police said a suicide truck bomber had targeted the house of an Iraqi police general, who was not at home but whose nephew was among those killed. U.S. officials said 75 people were wounded, and police said they included the general's elderly parents.
But the U.S. military disputed the police account, saying Shiite extremists were transporting rockets and mortars on a tractor-trailer when the weapons mistakenly exploded. Witnesses also confirmed the vehicle was carrying weapons.
"They were trying to attack us ... and it went off (accidentally)" said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover, who provided the death toll. "They wouldn't waste rockets like that" on a suicide attack.
The force of the blast crumbled several two-story buildings, buried cars under rubble, sheared off a corrugated steel roof and left a large crater on the residential street.
It was the deadliest single explosion in Baghdad since March 3, when a suicide car bomber killed 22 people in eastern Baghdad. Sixteen people died in a mortar attack in the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City on April 9.
Wednesday's carnage was a grim reminder of the bombs and killings that rocked the capital before President Bush rushed about 30,000 reinforcements to Iraq last year to curb a wave of Shiite-Sunni slaughter.
More recently, violence has dropped sharply since a May 11 cease-fire ended seven weeks of fighting between U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militiamen in the capital's Sadr City district.
Nevertheless, a car bomb exploded Wednesday night in the Shiite district of Karradah in east Baghdad, killing seven people, including three policemen, and wounding 11 other people, according to police and hospital sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.
The three American soldiers died when gunmen opened fire on them near the town of Hawija, 150 miles north of Baghdad, a U.S military statement said. No further details were released.
Their deaths brought to at least 4,090 the number of American military personnel who have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Hawija, once a hub for Sunni militants and disaffected allies of Saddam Hussein, was believed to have been pacified in recent months. Last year the town was the scene of one of the largest ceremonies where tribal sheiks joined forces with the Americans to fight al Qaeda in Iraq.
South of Baghdad, Iraqi villagers and soldiers unearthed at least 13 bodies from a shallow, dusty grave in farmland on the outskirts of Latifiyah, a mostly Sunni town that also has some Shiite residents. The bodies were first discovered Tuesday, but digging continued a day later.
Associated Press Television News footage showed Iraqi troops and civilians clawing through dusty soil with shovels. At least three severely decomposed bodies could be seen in side-by-side graves.
The U.S. military said American soldiers, acting on a tip from a local citizen, found at least 10 decomposed bodies Tuesday in the sewer shaft of a building in east Baghdad.
Those victims appeared to have died more than two years ago during the height of the sectarian reprisal killings, the military said.
Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, was taken over by al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants a few years ago. It became a hotbed of Sunni extremist activity before U.S. and Iraqi forces regained control late last year.
Maj. Faisal Ali Hussein, who supervised the digging, said villagers are only now feeling safe enough to point out possible mass grave sites in the area.
Also Wednesday, a car bomb wounded eight civilians in Kirkuk, police Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said. The city is the scene of ongoing ethnic tension among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen for control of the city, the heart of Iraq's northern oil fields.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said it detained nine suspects and destroyed two "terrorist safe houses" Wednesday in raids targeting al Qaeda across central and northern parts of the country.
One of the men had been wanted for alleged involvement in distributing weapons and car bombings in Baghdad, the military said in a statement.
Another suspect was responsible for organizing suicide bombings and helping foreign militants enter Iraq, the statement said.
Information from other detainees already in U.S. custody led American troops on Wednesday to two facilities that housed foreign militants west of Mosul, it said. The buildings were safely destroyed.
In a separate operation Wednesday, Iraqi police said they uncovered a large weapons cache near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.
Among the load were hundreds of explosive belts, three assembled car bombs and several different types of rockets, an officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. One suspect also was arrested in the raid.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Add a Comment See all 98 Comments
re: "nIslam should strongly condemn the suicidal mass murder of 73 school children in Afghanistan last year by Islamic suicide bomber..."
Posted by telecom_1
The U.S. has murdered/tortured/etc. thousands in Afghanistan.
Clearly you are too craven to accept responsibility for your own shocking stupidity.
You have no standing in telling others what they should or should not be condemning.
You can only look up to the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Palestine, as your betters.- Reply to this comment
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Islam should strongly condemn the suicidal mass murder of 73 school children in Afghanistan last year by Islamic suicide bomber but I don''''t hear one word against it, instead Islam riots and kills about some nobody loser who shot up a paper book, this is upside down and dose not make good sense, this makes Islam look like it has no sense of justice or good judgement at all. - Reply to this comment
- There''s only one religion that I know of that blow''s people up and think''s it''s a good thing. It''s not Morman,catholic,baptist,lutheran etc.
- Reply to this comment
- Everyday I read the news it''s like the movie "Groundhogs day". More bombs and more killing.
- Reply to this comment
- Plese help FeelFree4U raise money for its trip to Mecca.
- Reply to this comment
- Qada Iraq is a bunch of cowardly weaklings. They lack the size and strength to fight a war. Those homosexuals vent their anger by murdering innocent women and children. Q.I. should complete their transexuality with the surgery and socialization.
- Reply to this comment
- Quran Ash-Shuara sec3 :48 How dare you believe in him before I give you permission? I will cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides and crucify you all." They replied, "We don''t care."
- Reply to this comment
Re: "Has anyone noticed a ''trend'' by (certain) peoples of certain religions and certain nationalities who think its ok to kill innocent men, women, and children and furthermore by blowing themselves up in the process all in the name of ''religion?''
I have. Christians, Zionist Jews, Christian Zionists, and Evangelicals seem to be running amok in the U.S. Israel, and now Denmark for whatever reason, but their hey-day appears to be sharply waning.
Re: "These people are evil and need to be snuffed."
That seems pretty harsh and unnecessary.
Consider this-
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"Judge not lest ye be judged."
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
"What soever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me."
"I wanna'' rock and roll all night, and party ev-er-y day."
"You gotta fight for your right to party."
"Shine on, you crazy diamond."
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."- Albert Einstein
Words to live by.
Chill out.- Reply to this comment
- Has anyone noticed a ''trend'' by certains peoples of certain religions and certain nationalities who think its ok to kill innocent men, women, and children and furthermore by blowing themselves up in the process all in the name of ''religion?''
These people are evil and need to be snuffed. Don''t worry about ''collateral damage'' to their women and children, because they don''t bother to worry about that while they plan their ''attacks.'' Actually, what I mean by that, is innocent people should never die like this, even if it is the enemy.
But, if the only way to snuff them all out requires taking out their entire camps, perhaps that''s what needs to be done to end the constant attacks on other innocent citizens. JMHO. - Reply to this comment
- The article:"A U.S. military spokesman said the blast appeared to have been an accident that occurred as Shiite militiamen were transporting the weapons through a densely populated neighborhood of northern Baghdad - possibly to fire at a nearby American base. "
And WHO''S side are WE on? - Reply to this comment
- Clever reporting, switch the digging up graves to the bad guys blew something up, as a filler to filter the impact of 3 more dead crusaders. The good news for Bush of course is that neither he nor a major media camera crew will be at Dover AFB to greet the coffins.
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RE: "Boom,Boom,Boom----Nothing new about this. Kill,Kill,Kill-----Nothing new about this.All in the name of the peaceful religion we all love."
Posted by dobbershome
And just exactly how do the Mormons fit into this?- Reply to this comment
- Boom,Boom,Boom----Nothing new about this. Kill,Kill,Kill-----Nothing new about this.All in the name of the peaceful religion we all love.
Posted by dobbershome
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It sure doesn''t make it look good to us but over there their political party IS their religion.
Even in the USA there are religious groups that want the USA to be a country based on their religion''s rules. - Reply to this comment
- Boom,Boom,Boom----Nothing new about this. Kill,Kill,Kill-----Nothing new about this.All in the name of the peaceful religion we all love.
- Reply to this comment
- No problem. Banged my head against that wall too long.
Posted by bhoogren at 09:35 PM : Jun 04, 2008
bhoogren,
The smoking gun explantion, you really don''t need to say anymore.
Time for you to change that Login Name though. - Reply to this comment
- No problem. Banged my head against that wall too long.
Posted by bhoogren at 09:35 PM : Jun 04, 2008
Explains your brain injury
.. .. ..
I''ll also warn you about red164 also. One of the players with FeelFree4
red164 is a smear and slander type. In addition red164 will also modify a post and sign your name to it and will lie blatantly and think it''s all great.
Also without conscience or humanity.
Another cold dead machine and possibly another paid political telemarketer. - Reply to this comment
Re: "What can you expect from a pink monkey that comes from a long line of drunks and liars?"
Posted by RandyNason
Speaking of "pink monkeys", here is one of my favorite photos of Dubious George:
http://czabe.com/daily/archives/picoday_monkey_hang.jpg- Reply to this comment
- Al Qaeda wasn''t part of the equation for boosh, powell and cheney. It was WMD''s, including chemical weapons and their attempt to acquire "nuclear" material from Niger.
Boosh and Co. needed a power vacuum to give them a footing to stay forever. The braintrust has no intention to stabilize.
Vote mcSame to continue that illegal insanity, which is raping us of everything we had. Mission Accomplished. - Reply to this comment
- 320 Tons Only a Fraction of Missing Weapons
30-Oct-04
Bush Failure
Knight Ridder: "The more than 320 tons of missing high explosives at center stage in the presidential election are only a fraction of the material that''''s disappeared in Iraq since the invasion last year. Huge amounts of arms and ammunition were stolen from military sites, and there''''s ''''ample evidence'''' that Iraqi insurgents are firing looted weapons at U.S. troops and using some of them in car bombs and improvised explosive devices, said a senior U.S. intelligence official
Posted by mrright5 at 09:34 PM : Jun 04, 2008
Makes one wonder about all those reports from the US about weapons and bombs being supplied by Iran.
Why does Iraq need any of that stuff from Iran when there are already ample munitions, weapons and bomb material from that colossal Bush blunder back in 2003? - Reply to this comment
Re: "Because of the US led Iraq Occupation the Iraq Resistance is made up of over 10 different factions none of which is al-Qaqa as the propaganda in America would have US citizens believe"
Posted by mrright5
Nice summary!- Reply to this comment
