IRAQ: Car bombs continue to kill in Iraq and protesters angered by a U.S. raid in the capital take to the streets.

Record ID: 352389

  • Title: IRAQ: Car bombs continue to kill in Iraq and protesters angered by a U.S. raid in the capital take to the streets.
  • Date: 8th January 2007
  • Summary: DAMAGE INSIDE MINIBUS
  • Embargoed: 23rd January 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA7MVW1EGUJ17LGPXDBJI6GI81G
  • Story Text: Roadside bombs continue to kill war-weary Iraqis. The toll on Sunday (January 7) was heavy.
    One bomb almost killed an Iraqi Education official in central Baghdad. Iraqi police said the bomb went off near the convoy of Habib al-Shimiri, the Director General at the Ministry of Education as it was driving near al-Sha'ab Stadium neighbourhood of central Baghdad, two of al-Shimiri's bodyguards were killed in the attack.
    Seif, an eye witness said, "We were sitting inside the shop, when a roadside bomb went off near this vehicle (points). We have two martyrs. The blast shattered all the windows of the shop and the belongings (of the shop) went upside down." He confirmed that it had been a roadside bomb that went off near a vehicle.
    Another roadside bomb exploded next to civilians in southeastern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding two others, police said.
    The attack took place near Mohammed al-Qassim highway of southeastern Baghdad.
    A car bomb in a market in the Iraqi town of Hilla south of Baghdad on Sunday (January 7) killed two people and wounded 11, police and Interior Ministry sources said, adding the death toll could climb.
    The explosion went off near a local government office in central Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of the capital.
    Hilla, a mainly Shi'ite town with many Sunni Arabs living in surrounding areas, has been hit by big suicide bombings and the sectarian violence that is gripping Iraq. In February 2005, a suicide car bomb attack killed 125 people and wounded 130 in one of the bloodiest attacks since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
    But car bombs were not the only hazard facing Iraqis on Sunday.
    At least four civilians were killed and five others wounded when four mortar shells landed near a residential area in central Baghdad on Sunday (January 7), Interior Ministry sources said.
    They said that the attack took place in a car warehouse in the al-Karrada neighbourhood of central Baghdad.
    However, the real target of the mortar attack was not clear as Ali Naji, a witness of the blast, explained.
    "It is a residential area, a warehouse that belongs to the General Company for Shopping Centres, part of the Ministry of Trade and al-Rasheed company for maintaining cars. It is an area where there is no military base and no presence of the US forces or any military side," he said.
    Meanwhile, nearly two thousands demonstrators, supporters of the Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, took to the streets of the sprawling Shi'ite slum of Sadr city, in protest against a raid conducted by U.S. forces in the area.
    The demonstrators chanted anti-U.S. and -Israel slogans while carrying a photo of the Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
    Witnesses in Sadr city said that the U.S. forces raided number of area in their city, arresting eight people.
    They added that the U.S. forces loaded a pick up truck with explosives that exploded immediately after leaving the area. Witnesses said that 11 people were wounded in the blast.
    The U.S. forces did not give an immediate report on the raid or the arrests but later the U.S. military said that three U.S. airmen working for a bomb disposal team were killed by a car bomb in Baghdad and that one more airman was wounded in the blast.
    Supporters of al-Sadr who are known as Mehdi army, which was formed in 2003 and basically founded in Baghdad, Najaf, Kufa and Kerbala.
    Moqtada al-Sadr, a young Shi'ite cleric whose father and two brothers are believed to have been killed under Saddam's orders in 1999.
    Sadr, who has a popular following among poor, urban Shi'ite Muslims, is rallying support ahead of elections on December 15.
    Iraq is gripped by tit-for-tat sectarian killings between majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs once dominant under Saddam Hussein but now the backbone of the insurgency. Thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence many Iraqis fear is pitching the country toward all-out civil war.
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