Suicide bomber, gunmen kill 105 in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-14 18:00

A suicide car bomber struck as day laborers gathered to find work in a Shiite neighborhood in north Baghdad, killing at least 88 people and wounding 227 in the deadliest of a series of attacks in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

An Iraqi soldier secures the scene following an explosion in Baghdad, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005. At least 73 people were killed and 162 wounded early Wednesday when a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a group of construction workers in north Baghdad, police said. [AP]

Iraqi lawmakers, meanwhile, agreed on last-minute revisions to the contested draft constitution in a bid to appease the disgruntled Sunni minority that has formed the core support for the country's virulent insurgency.

In north Baghdad, twisted hulks of vehicles were strewn throughout Oruba Square in the Kazimiyah district after a suicide attacker drove a small van into an area where day laborers had gathered in search of work.

Iraq's Health Ministry said that 88 people had died and 227 were wounded, making it the deadliest attack in Iraq since Feb. 28, when a suicide car bomber targeted Shiite police and National Guard recruits in Hillah, killing 125 people.

Politicians immediately denounced the bombing. Husein al-Shahristani, deputy speaker of the National Assembly called the killings "barbaric and gruesome."

"These cowardly attacks reveal the deep hatred of the terrorists against the Iraqi people and the equality and justice in this country," he said.

Gunmen wearing military uniforms, meanwhile, surrounded a village north of Baghdad early Wednesday and executed 17 men, police said.

Police Lt. Waleed al-Hayali, in Taji, 10 miles north of Baghdad, said the gunmen detained the victims after searching the village. They were handcuffed, blindfolded and shot. The dead included one policeman and others who worked as drivers and construction workers for the U.S. military, said al-Hayali.

A car bomb hit an American military convoy in eastern Baghdad, and police Capt. Maher Hamad said two U.S. soldiers were wounded, though that was not confirmed by the U.S. military.

A third car bomb exploded alongside an Iraqi National Guard convoy in the northern Baghdad district of Shula, killing at least two people, authorities said.

Sunni militants have mounted a series of attacks on the Shiites in an apparent effort to provoke retaliation and a sectarian conflict. The Kazimiyah district that saw Wednesday's deadliest attack is the same area where about 950 people were killed on Sept. 1 during a bridge stampede as tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims were headed to a nearby shrines.

With the Oct. 15 referendum on the draft constitution looming, Iraqi lawmakers announced that the document had been finalized and would be sent to the United Nations for printing and distribution.

Hussein al-Shahristani, the deputy speaker of the National Assembly and a leading Shiite lawmaker, said the latest changes included an apparent bow to demands from the Arab League that the country be described as a founding member of the 22-member pan-Arab body and that it was "committed to its charter."

But that amended clause falls short of demands by Sunnis, who wanted the country's Arab identity clearly spelled out while mentions of federalism be struck from the document. They argue such language could ultimately lead to the disintegration of the multiethnic nation.

Still, the changes, which included clarifying that water resource management was the federal government's responsibility and that the prime minister would have two deputies in the Cabinet, are significant after weeks of discussions on the draft.

Hopes that a relative lull in the violence in the country would continue were shattered with the latest attacks around the capital.

At Baghdad's al-Kazimiyah Hospital, dozens of wounded men were shown lying on stretchers and gurneys, their bandages and clothes soaked in blood. One older man in a traditional Arab gown and checkered head scarf sat in a plastic chair, his blood-soaked underwear exposed with a trail of dried blood snaking down his legs.

Dr. Qays Abdel-Wahab al-Bustani told Associated Press Television News they received 75 wounded people and 47 others who were killed in the explosion. Al-Bustani said the wounded were in stable condition.

The attacks came as U.S. and Iraqi forces continued their offensive on insurgents in northern Iraq, striking hard at what officials have said are militants sneaking across the border from Syria.

On Tuesday, they launched an attack on the Euphrates River stronghold of Haditha. That attack came after some 200 militants were killed in Tal Afar in several days of fighting. Residents also reported American air strikes in the same region near Qaim, also near the Syrian border.

The offensive is apparently part of a campaign described on Monday by Iraq's defense minister, who said that Iraqi and U.S. forces would work their way along the insurgent-plagued town along the Euphrates River valley in the north, in a bid to stamp out the militants believed to be sneaking across the nearby border with Syria.

With the insurgency showing little signs of abating, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in a news conference with his U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, said American forces would remain in the country until Iraqi troops were prepared to assume full security responsibilities. The Bush administration is under increasing pressure at home to set a date to begin pulling out the 140,000 U.S. troops.

"We will set no timetable for withdrawal. A timetable will help the terrorists," Talabani said. He said he hoped Iraqi security forces could take responsibility for the country by the end of 2006.

Bush pledged to stand by Iraq despite "acts of staggering brutality" aimed at destabilizing the country.

A U.S. Army commander said Tuesday that extremist fighters battling for control of Tal Afar in northern Iraq had committed atrocities against civilians, including beheadings, torture and the booby-trapping of a murdered child's body.

"The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine — in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child's body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents; beheadings and so forth," Col. H.R. McMasters, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, said in an interview from Tal Afar, which lies about 50 miles from the Syrian border.

He said the 5,000 Iraqi government forces and 3,500 U.S. troops there had yet to take control of the city.

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