Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus > `Anarchy, a war of all against all' Baghdad locked down after spate of bombings leave 160 dead, prompting fears the attacks will trigger a Shiite backlash
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`Anarchy, a war of all against all' Baghdad locked down after spate of bombings leave 160 dead, prompting fears the attacks will trigger a Shiite backlash |
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`Anarchy, a war of all against all'
Baghdad locked down after spate of bombings leave 160 dead, prompting
fears the attacks will trigger a Shiite backlash
Nov. 24, 2006. 02:30 AM
CLAUDIA PARSONS
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
BAGHDAD=E2=80=94Baghdad was under curfew today and the government appealed
for calm after car bombs in a Shiite stronghold killed 160 in the
bloodiest single attack of the war, pushing Iraq closer to the abyss of
anarchy.
A further 257 people were wounded in the blasts, which left bloodied
remains and blackened bodies scattered amid blazing vehicles. Mortars
hit a Sunni enclave soon after, apparently in retaliation for the car
bombs, which came as gunmen assaulted the Shiite-held health ministry
in a bold daylight raid.
"It's an extravagant attack specifically designed to trigger
retaliation," said Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary, University
of London, likening it to the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in
February that sparked a surge in bloodshed.
Iraqi and U.S. leaders accuse Al Qaeda and diehard followers of deposed
president Saddam Hussein of seeking to provoke a Shiite backlash in
order to profit from ensuing chaos.
The attacks come after a week of tension inside the U.S.-backed
national unity government. Under pressure over Iraq, U.S. President
George W. Bush has pressed Shiite and minority Sunni leaders to rein in
militants to avoid all-out civil war.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who meets Bush next week for a
summit in Jordan, warned of "the dark hand of conspiracy that is
shedding the blood of the innocent" and urged restraint, vowing to hunt
down those responsible.
Top Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians made a joint appeal for calm.
Authorities slapped an indefinite curfew on Baghdad and closed the
airport. Ports and the airport in the southern Shiite oil city of Basra
would also close, an official said, in protest at the attacks.
Heavily guarded and policed by the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Sadr City escaped relatively unscathed until
this year from Al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent attacks. Bombings
against civilians there in recent months have been seen as a
declaration of war on the militia, which Sunnis blame for a wave of
death squad violence.
"As the bombs went off, everyone started running and shouting," news
photographer Kareem al-Rubaie said. "I saw a car from a wedding party,
covered in ribbons and flowers. It was burning. There were pools of
blood ... and children dead."
In a dramatic daylight raid that kicked off yesterday's spasm of
violence, five people were wounded when guerrillas fired mortars,
rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns into the health ministry
compound, five kilometres from Sadr City. The health ministry is run by
followers of al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army is accused by many Sunnis of
being behind some of the worst death squad violence in the capital, in
which thousands of people have been kidnapped and tortured and their
bodies dumped.
The United Nations said on Wednesday violent deaths among civilians had
hit a record 3,709 in October. It said attacks had surged since the
Samarra bombing in February and some 420,000 fled their homes to other
parts of Iraq since then.
"What you have is anarchy, a war of all against all with no hand strong
enough to win," said Dodge, adding that the response to the bombs would
test al-Sadr's ability to control the Mahdi Army. "It's clearly an
attempt to get a Samarra-like backlash."
Yesterday's attack was the worst single attack of the war and the
highest death toll since 171 people were killed in bombings in Karbala
and Baghdad at Shiite ceremonies in 2004.
Al-Maliki has called for a swifter transfer of responsibility for
security to Iraqi forces. Bush has said he will not leave the 140,000
U=2ES. troops in the "crossfire" of a civil war in Iraq, but has also
vowed not to leave without establishing stability and security in Iraq.
Qassem al-Mudalal, director of Imam Ali Hospital in Sadr City, said the
hospital's refrigeration units were overflowing with bodies. They had
admitted 98 wounded.
Even for Iraqis, long used to the daily bomb and shooting attacks that
terrorize neighbourhoods and have forced tens of thousands to flee
their homes, it was a hellish scene.
"Maliki is a son of a dog," Sadr City residents shouted as they
condemned the prime minister.
By nightfall, violence had spread to other neighborhoods in retaliatory
attacks. Mortars landed near Abu Hanifa Mosque, Baghdad's most revered
Sunni mosque, killing 22 people and injuring 17, a doctor told The
Washington Post.
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