IRAQ: A truck bomb narrowly misses killing a Sunni official, but gunmen kill 8 pilgrims and U.S. forces raid an Iranian consular office.

Record ID: 313611

  • Title: IRAQ: A truck bomb narrowly misses killing a Sunni official, but gunmen kill 8 pilgrims and U.S. forces raid an Iranian consular office.
  • Date: 11th January 2007
  • Summary: (BN10) SAMARRA, IRAQ (JANUARY 11, 2007) (REUTERS- ACCESS ALL) AMBULANCE DRIVING TO HOSPITAL/MAN CARRYING INJURED CHILD/ HOSPITAL CORRIDOR/ WOUNDED/MEDICS AND PEOPLE INSIDE HOSPITAL WAR WOUNDED CHILD VARIOUS OF WOUNDED PEOPLE ARRIVING HOSPITAL WOUNDED MAN IN WHEELCHAIR BEING WHEELED TO THE HOSPITAL WOUNDED MAN WITH BANDAGED LEG ARRIVING HOSPITAL MEDICS TREATING WOUNDED DOCTOR TREATING WOUNDED BOY (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED EYE WITNESS SAYING: "The houses were damaged on our heads. We did not see anything but dust. The houses were all damaged. We left everything behind us and came to the hospital." WOUNDED WOMAN'S FACE BEING TREATED
  • Embargoed: 26th January 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA5JINSNKUQIBAJ1BQ4DZQLFQT9
  • Story Text: Violence continued to wrack Iraq on Thursday. A Sunni official escaped an attack on his life when a truck bomb exploded near his home. Eight iraqis returning from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia weren't so lucky when their transportation was attacked by gunmen. Meantime, US forces stormed an Iranian consular office arresting five.

    An official in the city of Samarra escaped an assassination attempt on Thursday (January 11) after a truck bomb exploded next to his house, police said. According to police, three people were killed and 35 others were wounded in the attack that targeted Asaad Ali Yassin, the head of Samarra municipal council.
    "The houses were damaged on our heads. We did not see anything but dust. The houses were all damaged. We left everything behind us and came to the hospital," said an unidentified eye witness.
    Insurgents have repeatedly targeted top Iraqi officials and civil servants, who are viewed as collaborators of U.S. forces. In Kerbala, victims of an attack on two buses carrying pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia, spoke on Thursday (January 11) of their ordeal from their hospital beds:
    "When the car was about to turn around, cars followed us. They opened fire at us. They damaged our car, we did not feel anything but people were trampling on our backs and beside us there was a vehicle shooting at us. Women were shouting and we were shouting too," said a wounded pilgrim who died of wounds afterwards. Eight pilgrims died and 14 were injured in the attack on Wednesday (January 10).
    A different sort of violence unfolded, meantime, in the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Arbil early on Thursday. U.S. forces stormed an Iranian consular office and arrested five people, including diplomats and staff, Iranian officials said.
    The U.S. military made no direct mention of Iranians but in answer to a query issued a statement saying six "individuals" were arrested during "routine" operations in the area.
    As the overnight raid was in progress, President George W. Bush was vowing in a keynote address on American television to disrupt what he called the "flow of support" from
    Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini condemned the raid -- the second such operation in the past month as tensions between Washington and Tehran have mounted -- and said it was a violation of international law.
    In a statement, the U.S. military said it had detained six people around Arbil on suspicion of being "closely tied to activities targeting Iraqi and coalition forces".
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