Werewolfy
2009-10-25 20:19:00 UTC
Tell me your bloody war was all 'worth it' then.
Werewolfy
Baghdad blasts: 132 people killed in worst attack in two years
Iraq suffered its deadliest terrorist attack in more than two years
when two car bombs killed at least 132 people in the centre of
Baghdad.
By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent
Published: 6:32PM GMT 25 Oct 2009
Another 500 were wounded when the bombs targeting government buildings
exploded in quick succession.
The attacks appeared to represent a statement of intent by Iraq’s
increasingly emboldened insurgent groups after recent predictions of a
new wave of violence with the intention of disrupting elections
planned for January.
Iraqi MPs missed a deadline last week to pass an election law
required to hold the poll, raising the prospect of a damaging delay
that contravenes the constitution.
The decision brought with it warnings of a backlash by insurgents
seeking to exploit the political vacuum and damage the reputation of
Nouri al-Maliki, the pro-American prime minister. In a phone call to
Mr Maliki on Sunday, President Barack Obama described the bombings as
“outrageous” and said they were an attempt to derail progress in
Iraq.
Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the Iraqi
government was quick to blame the attacks on al-Qaeda or remnants of
Saddam Hussein’s party.
“The initial analysis shows it bears the fingerprints of al-Qaeda and
the Ba’athists,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman, who was
showered in glass after windows in a hotel he was visiting shattered
from the force of the blast.
For many Iraqis, the attacks were a chilling reminder of their country
as it once was - and perhaps a harbinger of things to come if the
elections are not held on time.
A pall of smoke hung above the city as flames enveloped whole
buildings. On the streets cars that had been tossed in the air by the
power of the explosion lay piled on top each other in pyramids of
twisted metal.
Stagnant water disgorged onto the streets by sewage pipes ripped open
by the blast washed over charred and mangled corpses.
So intense was the heat generated by the bombs, which targeted the
justice ministry and a nearby provincial government building, that
firemen said that many of the dead were too hot to touch.
Although the number of major attacks both in the capital city and
elsewhere in the country dropped significantly since the US military
surge of 2007, this was the second attack of such magnitude in Baghdad
in the last three months.
Nearly 100 people were killed in bombings on the foreign and finance
ministries in August.
But even the calm has been deceptive. Lawlessness remains pervasive
across the country, a fact exemplified by one incident in the
aftermath of Sunday’s bombings.
As police sought to secure the perimeter of the scene, they heard a
frantic banging from the boot of a damaged car with two corpses in the
passenger seats.
Inside, officers discovered a man who had been bundled into the boot
of the car after being seized from the streets earlier that day. Such
kidnappings remain common in Iraq.
The deadliest toll in a terrorist strike in Iraq since the invasion
was in August 2007, when more than 400 people were slaughtered by four
co-ordinated suicide truck bombs targeting the Yazidi religious sect
in Kurdish northern Iraq
Werewolfy
Baghdad blasts: 132 people killed in worst attack in two years
Iraq suffered its deadliest terrorist attack in more than two years
when two car bombs killed at least 132 people in the centre of
Baghdad.
By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent
Published: 6:32PM GMT 25 Oct 2009
Another 500 were wounded when the bombs targeting government buildings
exploded in quick succession.
The attacks appeared to represent a statement of intent by Iraq’s
increasingly emboldened insurgent groups after recent predictions of a
new wave of violence with the intention of disrupting elections
planned for January.
Iraqi MPs missed a deadline last week to pass an election law
required to hold the poll, raising the prospect of a damaging delay
that contravenes the constitution.
The decision brought with it warnings of a backlash by insurgents
seeking to exploit the political vacuum and damage the reputation of
Nouri al-Maliki, the pro-American prime minister. In a phone call to
Mr Maliki on Sunday, President Barack Obama described the bombings as
“outrageous” and said they were an attempt to derail progress in
Iraq.
Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the Iraqi
government was quick to blame the attacks on al-Qaeda or remnants of
Saddam Hussein’s party.
“The initial analysis shows it bears the fingerprints of al-Qaeda and
the Ba’athists,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman, who was
showered in glass after windows in a hotel he was visiting shattered
from the force of the blast.
For many Iraqis, the attacks were a chilling reminder of their country
as it once was - and perhaps a harbinger of things to come if the
elections are not held on time.
A pall of smoke hung above the city as flames enveloped whole
buildings. On the streets cars that had been tossed in the air by the
power of the explosion lay piled on top each other in pyramids of
twisted metal.
Stagnant water disgorged onto the streets by sewage pipes ripped open
by the blast washed over charred and mangled corpses.
So intense was the heat generated by the bombs, which targeted the
justice ministry and a nearby provincial government building, that
firemen said that many of the dead were too hot to touch.
Although the number of major attacks both in the capital city and
elsewhere in the country dropped significantly since the US military
surge of 2007, this was the second attack of such magnitude in Baghdad
in the last three months.
Nearly 100 people were killed in bombings on the foreign and finance
ministries in August.
But even the calm has been deceptive. Lawlessness remains pervasive
across the country, a fact exemplified by one incident in the
aftermath of Sunday’s bombings.
As police sought to secure the perimeter of the scene, they heard a
frantic banging from the boot of a damaged car with two corpses in the
passenger seats.
Inside, officers discovered a man who had been bundled into the boot
of the car after being seized from the streets earlier that day. Such
kidnappings remain common in Iraq.
The deadliest toll in a terrorist strike in Iraq since the invasion
was in August 2007, when more than 400 people were slaughtered by four
co-ordinated suicide truck bombs targeting the Yazidi religious sect
in Kurdish northern Iraq