[Mb-civic] Deadly Car Bombs Hit Najaf, Karbala

[Michael Butler]

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  Deadly Car Bombs Hit Najaf, Karbala
   By Paul Garwood 
   The Associated Press

  Sunday 19 December 2004

   BAGHDAD, Iraq - Car bombs rocked Iraq's two holiest Shiite cities Sunday,
killing more than 60 people and wounding more than 120, while in downtown
Baghdad dozens of gunmen carried out a brazen ambush that killed three Iraqi
employees of the organization running next month's elections.

   The bombs exploded an hour apart. First, a suicide blast ripped through
parked minibuses at the entrance to the Karbala bus station. Then a car bomb
shattered a central square in Najaf, crowded with residents watching a
funeral procession. The city police chief and provincial governor were among
the group but were not hurt.

   The violence was the latest in an insurgent campaign to disrupt the
crucial Jan. 30 elections, the first national polls since the fall of Saddam
Hussein.

   While many have feared that voting in the Sunni areas of northern and
central Iraq will be hampered - if not impossible - because of the spiraling
violence, Sunday's attacks highlighted that even the strongholds of Iraq's
Shiite majority in the south are vulnerable. Shiites have been strong
supporters of the elections, which they are likely to dominate.

   The car bomb in Najaf detonated in central Maidan Square where a large
crowd of people had gathered for the funeral procession of a tribal sheik -
about 100 yards from where Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi and police chief Ghalib
al-Jazaari were standing.

   Youssef Munim, head of the statistics department at Najaf's al-Hakim
Hospital, said 47 people were killed by the explosion and 69 were wounded.
Two more dead and 21 other wounded were taken to the nearby al-Zahraa
Hospital, according to nurse Mohanad Abdul Redha.

   "A car bomb exploded near us," al-Zurufi said. "I saw about 10 people
killed."

   Al-Jazaari believed he and al-Zurufi were the targets of the attack, in
which he said three explosives went off at about 2:45 p.m. "As I and the
governor were waiting for the funeral processions three explosions
occurred," al-Jazaari said. "We were targeted." It was not immediately clear
what the other explosions were from.

   Residents were pulling bodies of the dead from damaged shops at the
square, which is about 400 yards from the Imam Ali Shrine, the holiest
Shiite site in Iraq.

   The bombing in Karbala, about 45 miles northwest of Najaf, destroyed
about 10 passenger minibuses and set fire to five cars outside the crowded
bus station. Firefighters tried to put out the blazes as ambulances ferried
burned and bleeding casualties to the nearby al-Hussein hospital.

   Ali al-Ardawi, assistant for the hospital's director, said 13 people were
killed in the attack and 30 injured.

   It was the second bombing in Karbala in a week. On Wednesday, a bomb went
off at the city's gold-domed Imam Hussein Shrine, killing eight people and
wounding 40 in an apparent attempt to kill a top aide to Iraq's most
powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

   The shrine, located near the bus station, was hit by a March 2 suicide
bombing that killed 85 people and wounded 100. The holy sites in Najaf and
Karbala, south of Baghdad, house the tombs of Shia Islam's most revered
saints.

   Insurgents on Sunday also carried out a new attack on election officials,
with a daylight assault on Baghdad's central Haifa Street, the scene of
repeated clashes between security forces and insurgents.

   About 30 militants hurling hand grenades and firing machine guns attacked
a car carrying five people employed by the commission's Baghdad office and
tried "to drag them out," said Adel al-Lami, a member of the Independent
Electoral Commission of Iraq.

   Three employees, including a security guard, were killed while two
escaped unhurt, he said.

   A police official said four people were killed, adding that the ferocity
of the clashes prevented police from nearing the area.

   Witnesses said the attackers later set fire to the vehicle and wandered
the street brandishing their weapons. U.S. and Iraqi National Guard forces
cordoned off the area after the attacks, they said. A U.S. military
spokesman had no immediate details.

   Also, insurgents claiming to represent three Iraqi militant groups issued
a videotape showing what they said were 10 abducted Iraqis who had been
working for an American security and reconstruction company.

   Masked insurgents in the video said they represent the Mujahedeen Army,
the Black Banner Brigade and the Mutassim Bellah Brigade, all previously
unknown groups. Nine blindfolded hostages could be seen lined up against a
stone wall and a 10th was lying in a bed, apparently wounded.

   The militants said they would kill the hostages if the company, Sandi
Group, does not leave the country. They also threatened more attacks on its
Iraqi operations.

   Chad Knauss, an American and deputy chief operations officer of Sandi
Group in Iraq, declined to comment on the claims. The company, based in
Washington, employs 7,000 in Iraq.

   Meanwhile, Iraqi police said they detained 45 men who illegally entered
from neighboring Iran. The men were detained Saturday at Mandali, a border
town 60 miles east of Baghdad. They had no identity documents but claimed to
be Muslim pilgrims from Iran, Afghanistan or Bangladesh.

   Also Sunday, a diplomat said two Egyptians employed by the Egyptian-owned
cell phone company Iraqna who were detained earlier this week by Iraqi and
U.S. troops were released.

   When asked why the men were seized from their Baghdad home on Wednesday,
Farouk Riyadh Mabrouk, head of the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Baghdad,
said only, "It was a big misunderstanding." U.S. and Iraqi authorities have
not commented on why the men were detained.

  

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