Iraq Police: 29 Killed by Mosque Bombs

Car Bombs Explode Near 4 Baghdad Shiite Mosques During Friday Prayers, Shattering Relative Calm

(CBS/AP)  Bombs exploded near five Shiite mosques in Baghdad, killing at least 29 people, in an apparent coordinated attack that targeted worshippers leaving Friday prayers, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.

The bombings shattered a period of relative calm in the Iraqi capital, raising to at least 306 the number of Iraqis killed in what has been one of the least deadly months for both Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops since the war began. Seven American troops have been killed - the lowest monthly total since the war started in March 2003, according to an AP tally.

The attack also underscores concerns about the abilities of Iraqi security forces to maintain security gains now that U.S. troops have withdrawn from major urban areas. Some Sunni insurgents still seek to re-ignite sectarian violence with the majority Shiites and reverse Iraq's security gains in the past two years.

Iraqi police told CBS News' Baghdad bureau that a total of four bombs had exploded at four different mosques. The first blast took place at a mosque loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, according to the police source.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The deadliest attack Friday came when a car bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Shaab, killing at least 24 people and wounding 17 others, said two Iraqi police officials and a medical official.

At about the same time, almost simultaneous explosions struck near the al-Rasoul mosque near the Jisr Diyala bridge, in southern Baghdad, killing four worshippers and wounding 17 others, the two police officials said.

A roadside bomb exploded near al-Hakim mosque in Kamaliyah area in eastern Baghdad, wounding six worshippers. A bomb near Imam al-Sadiq mosque in the religiously mixed neighborhood of Ilam in southwestern Baghdad wounded 4, while a bomb near the al-Sadrain mosque in the Zafaraniyah area in southeastern Baghdad killed one and wounded seven worshippers.

The officials giving the toll all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Only three other months this year saw fewer Iraqis killed since the AP began tracking war-related fatalities in May 2005. There were 242 deaths in January, 288 in February and 225 in May.

But U.S. commanders say security gains are fragile and reversible, and the Iraqi government needs years of further assistance.

U.S. commanders have also warned attacks could escalate ahead of national elections next year. The United States has about 130,000 forces in Iraq, with current plans calling for most combat forces to remain in the country until after the Jan. 16 vote.

Then, under a timeline set by President Barack Obama, all combat troops will withdraw from Iraq by August 2010.

American troops, though, continue to be targeted by insurgents. On Friday, rockets struck a U.S. base outside Iraq's second largest city of Basra, but there were no reports of casualties. Three U.S. soldiers were killed earlier this month in a similar attack at the base.

Questions about the Iraqi security forces were heightened earlier this week, when they clashed violently with residents of a camp north of Baghdad for exiled Iranians. Iraqi officials confirm at least seven people were killed and spokesmen for the exiles say 12 were killed and hundreds more injured in two days of intense skirmishes.

On Friday, an American military medical team went to Camp Ashraf and evacuated some of the camp's residents who were wounded in the clashes, which began Tuesday when the Iraqis tried to enter the camp to establish a police station inside its fences.

The U.S. military and embassy officials did not immediately respond to questions about how many the medical team evacuated from the camp or where they were taken.

The violence at the camp, which was until earlier this year guarded by the U.S. military, has raised human rights issues and questions about how Iraq will balance its relations with the U.S., which has called for restraint, and neighboring Iran, which wants the exiles sent back.

About 3,500 ex-Iranian fighters and their relatives live in the camp, first set up in 1986 when they helped Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, American troops disarmed the fighters and confined them to the camp. The Americans handed over responsibility for the camp to the Iraqis on Jan. 1, but maintain a force nearby.

Iraq has said it wants to close the camp, but human rights groups fear the Iranians could be subjected to punishment or even death if they are sent back to Iran.

A camp resident, Hossein Madani, 49, said U.S. military medics entered the camp Thursday night and left Friday morning, taking with them a handful of injured residents.

“There were thousands of American forces here before. They should come back and take control of the situation,” said Madani, who has lived with his wife in the camp for seven years.

Meanwhile, Iraqi police Friday announced they had recovered millions of dollars stolen from a state-run bank in a robbery that left eight guards dead.

Interior ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said all the money was recovered and added that police have detained some of the robbers.

He did not provide further details.

Gunmen killed eight security guards at the Rafidain Bank, making off with nearly $7 million. Police said the robberies appeared to be the work of militants seeking money for operations after their funding was severely curtailed in U.S.-Iraqi military crackdowns.

Police found the money Thursday when they raided the house of an Iraqi soldier, said an interior ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

[lars008-2009]

interesting,,, has islam banned slavery of non-muslims yet???

[underdogus09]

The Washington Post reports, "The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute". Combine these debacles with the 7 million lost jobs since the "recession" began, rapidly increasing inflation, stolen pension funds, more taxes, and increased homeless families from foreclosures and this roller coaster ride is just beginning. Watch for begging in the streets.....

[SouthwestisBest]

Where did you come up with all this misinformation?

The US has never entered expansionism. Anytime we've gone into a country to help them out the country has been handed back to them, and even repaired war damage.

At the behest of most of these countries, the US has established a peace keeping bases, which has been highly successful and still is.

The only thing as far as I can see that's been done wrong by the democrats, as usual, when they see a problem their big idea is to throw taxpayer money at it. Their foreign aid policies are totally out of hand, and allows these countries to keep finding excuses to milk the foreign aid system. Just like their socialist welfare programs allow the lazy to milk the system so they don't have to work.

[ToolMangler1]

You are ignoring the Apologist creed, "Never let the 'facts' or the 'truth' get in your way when blaming the government for anything"!!!!!

[underdogus09]

3. We Are Going to Lose the War in Afghanistan and It Will Help Bankrupt Us
In other words, the United States is not seriously contemplating its own bankruptcy. It is instead ignoring the meaning of its precipitate economic decline and flirting with insolvency.....

[underdogus09]

2.America is in unprecedented decline. The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq war, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-account balances and other internal economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today's world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. If present trends continue, we will look back on the Bush years as the death knell of American hegemony....

[Benton09]

Exactly! Rome is falling.

[mejordelahistoria]

oh please don't even compare this with rome...... to this day we live with the legacy of the roman empire in our laws, architecture, several languages, etc..... I don't think the US ever won a war against anyone by itself, except mexico, the spaniards needed 500 men to defeat them by hand.

[underdogus09]

1. We Can No Longer Afford Our Postwar Expansionism
Shortly after his election as president, Barack Obama, in a speech announcing several members of his new cabinet, stated as fact that "we have to maintain the strongest military on the planet." A few weeks later, on March 12, 2009, in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington DC, the president again insisted, "Now make no mistake, this nation will maintain our military dominance. We will have the strongest armed forces in the history of the world." And in a commencement address to the cadets of the U.S. Naval Academy on May 22nd, Obama stressed that "we will maintain America's military dominance and keep you the finest fighting force the world has ever seen."

What he failed to note is that the United States no longer has the capability to remain a global hegemon, and to pretend otherwise is to invite disaster.....

[ToolMangler1]

We never were a 'Global' Hegemony. It was always a minimum of a three way split and now it split even more ways

[underdogus09]

These massive concentrations of American military power outside the United States are not needed for our defense. They are, if anything, a prime contributor to our numerous conflicts with other countries. They are also unimaginably expensive. According to Anita Dancs, an analyst for the website Foreign Policy in Focus, the United States spends approximately $250 billion each year maintaining its global military presence. The sole purpose of this is to give us hegemony ? that is, control or dominance ? over as many nations on the planet as possible.

We are like the British at the end of World War II: desperately trying to shore up an empire that we never needed and can no longer afford, using methods that often resemble those of failed empires of the past ? including the Axis powers of World War II and the former Soviet Union. There is an important lesson for us in the British decision, starting in 1945, to liquidate their empire relatively voluntarily, rather than being forced to do so by defeat in war, as were Japan and Germany, or by debilitating colonial conflicts, as were the French and Dutch. We should follow the British example. (Alas, they are currently backsliding and following our example by assisting us in the war in Afghanistan.)

Here are three basic reasons why we must liquidate our empire or else watch it liquidate us.

[mejordelahistoria]

who says you were ever an empire? invading other countries with the brits and 29 other nations helping you it's hardly a military achievement. The same for ww2 you even showed up late.

[ToolMangler1]

We never were and don't want to be an "Empire"

I googled it for you!!

"Main Entry: em·pire
Pronunciation: \?em-?p?(-?)r\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French empire, empirie, from Latin imperium absolute authority, empire, from imperare to command ? more at emperor
Date: 14th century
1 a (1): a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority ; especially : one having an emperor as chief of state (2): the territory of such a political unit b: something resembling a political empire ; especially : an extensive territory or enterprise under single domination or control"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empire

[docpeter1953]

Anybody want to guess what is going to happen in Iraq when/after the USA moves out?