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Suicide Bomb Kills 115 Near Iraq Marketplace
By Haider Abbas
Reuters
HILLA, Iraq - A suicide bomber detonated a car near a crowded marketplace south
of Baghdad Monday, killing 115 people and wounding 148 in the single bloodiest
attack in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The bomber rammed the car into a crowd of people queuing for government jobs outside
a health center in the town of Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of the capital.
Many of those killed were shopping at stalls across the road and caught in the
blast.
Reuters television footage showed a pile of bloodied bodies outside the building.
Smoke rose from the wreckage of burned-out market stalls as bystanders loaded
mangled corpses on to wooden carts, usually used to carry fruit and vegetables.
Others, their limbs ripped to shreds, were piled into the back of pick-up trucks.
Nearby buildings were pockmarked by shrapnel. People wept, clutched the heads
in despair and shouted "God is greatest" as rescuers led the wounded
away.
"The number of dead has reached 115. We are doing our utmost to treat the
wounded (but) the death toll may rise," an official in Hilla's health directorate
told Reuters.
He said existing patients had been moved out of hospitals to make way for the
victims of the blast. More than 30 medics had rushed to the city from nearby towns
to treat the wounded.
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society said it had sent emergency aid and medics to Hilla
from Baghdad to help.
The toll makes the blast the single deadliest attack since the fall of Saddam
in April 2003, and Monday one of the bloodiest days of the two-year insurgency.
The worst day was last March, when more than 170 people were killed in a series
of suicide bombings in Baghdad and the holy city of Kerbala, just west of Hilla.
The target of the latest attack appeared to be a crowd of people waiting outside
the health center to get certificates needed to apply for government jobs. Hilla
residents said many of them were applying for jobs in Iraq's security forces.
Insurgents, fighting to drive U.S. troops out of Iraq and wreck the country's
transition to democracy, have often targeted people looking for state jobs. They
frequently attack police and army recruits but have also killed local government
workers.
The carnage came as Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi acknowledged Iraq's security
forces were still unable to take on the insurgency without the help of U.S.-led
troops.
"Iraqis should be able to start taking over more and more security responsibilities
very soon," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "But we will continue
to need and to seek assistance for some time to come."
Police and Civilians Killed
Elsewhere in Iraq, another suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle in the town
of Musayyib, just 30 km (18 miles) from Hilla, but succeeded in killing only
himself.
A hospital official said one civilian was killed and two were wounded when insurgents
fought with Iraqi troops in the town of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.
Two policemen were killed in the capital, one by a gunman and one by a roadside
bomb, police sources and witnesses said.
The U.S. military said gunmen killed four people and wounded two in the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul Sunday. A bombing near the town, also Sunday, killed eight
people.
The military also said a U.S. soldier was shot dead in Baghdad while manning
a traffic checkpoint. The death takes the number of U.S. troops killed in action
in Iraq since the March 2003 war to 1,137.
Allawi's government and its American backers insist the insurgency is being
defeated and have announced a series of high-profile arrests in recent weeks
to support their claim.
The government was expected to give details later Monday of the capture of Saddam
Hussein's half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti, a top-level Baathist
accused of directing the Iraqi insurgency from Syria.
Ibrahim, an intelligence chief and one-time adviser to Saddam, was number 36
on the U.S. military's list of the 55 most-wanted people in Iraq. His arrest
was announced Sunday.
A senior government official told Reuters that Syria, under pressure due to
accusations it was behind recent attacks in Israel and Lebanon, had played a
role in giving Ibrahim up.
Syria has come under fire from the United States after the assassination of
former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut nearly two weeks ago.
The Lebanese opposition blamed Damascus for his death.
Iraq's U.S.-backed government has repeatedly accused Syria of abetting militants,
charges Damascus denies.
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