World

Over 100 Dead In Iraq Car Blast

February 28, 2005 / 10:51 AM EST / CBS/AP

A suicide bomber blasted a crowd of police and national guards recruits Monday as they gathered outside a clinic south of Baghdad, leaving at least 106 people dead and 133 injured — the single deadliest attack since the end of the war.

Babil province police said at least 110 people were killed and 133 others were wounded.

Torn limbs, feet and other body parts littered the street outside the medical clinic in Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.

A statement from police said that "several people" were arrested in connection with the blast. It did not elaborate.

In other developments:

In Baghdad, the U.S. military said it was investigating the death of a U.S. soldier who was shot dead manning a traffic checkpoint in the capital a day earlier. Nearly 1,500 U.S. troops have died since the war began in March 2003.

In central Baghdad, Iraqi troops blocked main avenues leading to and from Firdous Square, the roundabout in central Baghdad where Iraqis toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003. Occasional shots and busts of automatic weapons fire could be heard during the sweep of the Battaween area, know locally as the Sudanese district. Several people believed to be Sudanese were seen being arrested by police. Some of Baghdad's past suicide bombers have in the past been identified as Sudanese.

In al-Mashahda, 25 miles north of Baghdad, police found three unidentified corpses that had their hands tied together with plastic cuffs, the police commissioner Abbas Abdul Ridha said.

Iraqis have threatened bloodshed over a decision introducing a second weekly day off. They welcome the extra free time, but are angered the new weekend includes Saturday - the Jewish Sabbath. They want Thursdays off instead.

The body of Raiedah Mohammed Wageh Wazan, a 35-year-old anchorwoman for the U.S.-funded Nineveh TV, was found dumped along a Mosul street, six days after she was kidnapped by masked gunmen, according to her husband, who said she had been shot four times in the head. The mother of three boys and a girl had been threatened with death several times by insurgents who demanded she quit her job, he said.

The blast came a day after Iraq announced the capture of a key insurgent leader in neighboring Syria and was the deadliest single attack since President Bush declared the war over in May 2003.

The blast outside the clinic was so powerful it nearly vaporized the suicide bomber's car, leaving only its engine partially intact. The injured were piled into pickup trucks and ambulances and taken to nearby hospitals.

Outside the concrete and brick building, people gingerly walked around small lakes of blood that pooled on the street. Scorch marks infused with blood covered the clinic's walls and dozens of people helped pile body parts, including arms, feet and limbs, into blankets. Piles of shoes and tattered clothes were thrown into a corner.

Angry crowds gathered outside the hospital chanting "Allah Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," and demanded to know the fate of their relatives.

"I was lined up near the medical center, waiting for my turn for the medical exam in order to apply for work in the police," Abdullah Salih, 22, said. "Suddenly I heard a very big explosion. I was thrown several meters away and I had burns in my legs and hands, then I was taken to the hospital."

Dia Mohammed, the director of Hilla General hospital, most the victims were recruits waiting to take physicals as part of the application process to join the Iraqi police and national guard.

"I was lucky because I was the last person in line when the explosion took place. Suddenly there was panic and many frightened people stepped on me. I lost consciousness and the next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital" said Muhsin Hadi, 29, a recruit. One of his legs was broken in the blast.

A second car bomb exploded Monday at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 20 miles north of Hillah, killing at least one policeman and wounding several others, police said on condition of anonymity.

In the deadlier attack, the suicide attacker drove into the crowd of jobseekers at the government office in Hilla, witnesses said.

The suicide bombing came one day after Iraqi officials announced that Syria had captured and handed over Saddam Hussein's half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency, in the latest in a series of arrests of important insurgent figures that the Iraqi government hopes will deal a crushing blow to violent opposition forces.

The arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan also ended months of Syrian denials that it was harboring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.

Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who shared a mother with Saddam, was nabbed along with 29 other fugitive members of the former dictator's Baath Party in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, 30 miles from the Iraqi border, the officials said Sunday on condition of anonymity. The U.S. military in Iraq had no comment.

Syria is under intense pressure from the United States, the United Nations, France and Israel to drop its support for radical groups in the Middle East, to stop harboring Iraqi fugitives and to remove its troops from Lebanon.

A week ago authorities grabbed a key associate and the driver of Jordanian-born terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and believed to be the inspiration of the ongoing bombings, beheadings and attacks on Iraqi and American forces. Iraqi officials said they expect to take al-Zarqawi soon.