Back-To-Back Horror In Baghdad
Iraqi rebels continuing their campaign to undermine the government and the foreign troops who support it struck again Thursday, with three different suicide bombs in south Baghdad, a day after more than a dozen suicide bombs claimed at least 160 lives and wounded 570 others.
Two suicide car bombers struck within a minute of each other just a half-mile apart in south Baghdad shortly before noon, killing at least seven policemen and raising the day's bombing death toll to at least 28.
Four hours earlier, 16 police officers and 5 civilians were killed when a suicide bomber drove his car into a convoy of police vehicles in Baghdad's southern Dora district.
So far there has been no claim of responsibility for Thursday's bombs but the terror group Al Qaeda In Iraq has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's suicide attacks. In an audio tape posted to the Internet - purportedly by Al Qaeda In Iraq - the group declares all out war on Shiite Muslims, Iraqi troops and the Iraqi government.
Wednesday was the Iraqi capital's bloodiest day since the U.S. declared the end of the "major combat" phase of the war.
In other recent developments:
Wednesday's Baghdad bombs coincided with Iraqi lawmakers announcing that the country's draft constitution is in its final form and will be sent to the United Nations for printing and distribution ahead of the referendum. Sunni Arabs, who form up the core of the insurgency, have vowed to defeat the charter.
The tape released to the web and ascribed to the terror group Al Qaeda is seen as an attempt to deepen a climate of fear, sow more sectarian discord and scare Iraqis away from the Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution.
The speaker on the tape, introduced as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says his forces will attack any Iraqi it believes has cooperated with an ongoing U.S.-led offensive in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar.
"If proven that any of (Iraq's) national guards, police or army are agents of the Crusaders, they will be killed and his house will demolished or burnt, after evacuating all women and children, as a punishment," the voice said in the new tape that surfaced on an Internet site known for carrying extremist Islamist content.
The attacks came as U.S. and Iraqi forces pressed their offensive against insurgents in the northern city of Tal Afar and along the Euphrates River valley, striking hard at what officials have said were militants sneaking across the border from Syria.
At least six attacks targeted U.S. forces, Iraqi authorities said. The U.S. military said there were four direct attacks on Americans, with 10 soldiers wounded. No U.S. deaths were reported.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is in the United States for the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, expressed "his personal sorrow for the victims of the attacks."
Wednesday, in Dearborn, Mich. - a Detroit suburb with a large Iraqi population - al-Jaafari vowed to fight back. "Those criminals will not run away from our justice system. Our cities, our villages will not welcome them," he said.