Baghdad Suicide Blast Kills Dozens
A suicide attacker blew up a car packed with explosives in a crowd of hundreds of Iraqis waiting outside an army recruiting center here Wednesday, killing up to 46 people, officials and witnesses said, in the second bombing in two days targeting Iraqis working with the American-led coalition.
The attack, which occurred a day after a suicide bombing against a police station south of Baghdad that killed up to 53 people, fueled warnings that insurgents are stepping up violence to disrupt the planned June 30 handover of power to the Iraqis.
"This could be ... part of the ongoing pattern of intimidation we've seen of late," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military's deputy operations chief in Baghdad, told The Associated Press in an e-mail interview. "We have stated numerous times that in the lead-up to governance, there could be an uptick in the violence."
Col. Ralph Baker of the 1st Armored Division said there was no immediate indication who was behind Wednesday's attack, but he said it resembled "the operating technique" of al Qaeda or Ansar al-Islam, a radical Muslim group linked to Osama bin Laden's terror network.
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The 7:25 a.m. blast tore into would-be army volunteers waiting outside the recruitment center less than a mile from the heavily fortified green zone, where the U.S. administration has its headquarters. Baker said a man driving a white 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra detonated about 300 to 500 pounds of explosives.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement that 46 people were killed and 54 wounded. Iraq's deputy interior minister, Ahmed Ibrahim, told reporters "this crime" will "not deter the people's march toward freedom." Maj. John Frisbie, spokesman of the 2nd Brigade 1st Armored Division, put the toll at 36 dead.
Charred debris from the vehicle was scattered across the road in front of the center as a heavy rain soaked troops and FBI agents looking for evidence at the blast scene.
The recruitment center was surrounded by barbed wire and had sandbagged posts in front of it. But around 300 Iraqis were gathered outside the center's locked gates, waiting for it to open, and were completely exposed. Some of them were lined up to join the military and others waiting to depart for a training camp in Jordan.
"I was just telling my buddy that it was very dangerous to be standing here," said Ali Hussein, 22, who was lined up with the others. He lay on a bed soaked in his blood at Karkh Hospital, his body shaking as he gasped for air. He said he saw a white Oldsmobile approaching the crowd. "Then I felt nothing but fire around me." His legs were covered in bandages, and he had broken bones.
Ghasan Sameer, 32, an officer in the new Iraqi army who was also among the wounded, said the car drove into the crowd and ran over some people before exploding.
Tuesday's suicide bombing in the predominantly Shiite Muslim town of Iskandariyah, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, reduced parts of the police station to rubble and damaged nearby buildings. At least 53 people were killed.
The attacks, were at least the eighth and ninth vehicle bombings in Iraq this year. U.S. forces have been preparing the Iraqi police and military to take a larger role in battling the anti-U.S. insurgency that has been blamed on supporters of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and foreign Islamic militants.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that attacks on Iraqi security personnel have not deterred more from wanting to join. "We find people are still lining up, volunteering, interested in participating and serving," Rumsfeld told reporters in Washington.
Insurgents have mounted a string of car and suicide bombings in recent weeks. The deadliest so far has been in the northern city of Irbil on Feb. 1 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up at two Kurdish party offices celebrating a Muslim holiday, killing at least 109 people.
On Jan. 18, a suicide car bomb exploded near the main gate to the U.S.-led coalition's headquarters in Baghdad, killing at least 31 people.