IRAQ: Violence continues in Iraq despite the recent unveiling of a national reconciliation programme

Record ID: 354284

  • Title: IRAQ: Violence continues in Iraq despite the recent unveiling of a national reconciliation programme
  • Date: 27th June 2006
  • Summary: POLICEMEN AT SITE OF BLAST
  • Embargoed: 12th July 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAAAR2PFT31GDVFVJWS5D41694B
  • Story Text: A wave of violence continued in Iraq on Tuesday (June 27) two days after the unveiling of a national reconciliation programme.
    In the Northern city of Kirkuk, a car bomb exploded at a petrol station, killing at least one person and wounding nine, police said.
    Ambulances rushed to the scene of the blast amid gunfire, according to witnesses. Police said they were looking into reports that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.
    The attack in the ethnically divided oil centre of Kirkuk came two days after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki unveiled a national reconciliation plan aimed at tackling the Sunni Arab insurgency and easing sectarian tensions.
    In the capital Baghdad, a roadside bomb went off close to an Iraqi police patrol in wounding four people, one of them a civilian.
    The attack took place in al-Jadida district of eastern Baghdad.
    Salam Lei'bi, an Iraqi policeman who was at site of attack, said that two policeman were killed.
    "A bomb was planted on the side of the road and exploded close to an Iraqi police patrol. The attack killed two policemen and wounded two others," he said.
    But the violence has also been affecting civilians.
    On Monday (June 26), 10 young men, all students from Sunni towns near Baghdad, were abducted from the building where they were staying.
    Police said the students were studying at the Technology University and they were from the Province of Diyala and the restive city of Ramadi.
    Sunnis say pro-government Shi'ite militias are targeting the minority Sunni Arab community, once dominant under Saddam.
    Later on Monday, violence broke out yet again - this time in a market.
    A bomb placed in a bag exploded among shoppers at a market in Hilla - a mainly Shi'ite town south of Baghdad.
    There was confusion on the Hilla toll.
    Interior Ministry sources in Baghdad, citing Hilla police, said 17 people had been killed and 25 wounded. But a spokesman for Hilla police, Mothanna al-Mamoury, said eight were dead and 58 wounded.
    On Tuesday (June 27), traumatised shopkeepers and residents struggled to pick up the pieces of Monday's violence.
    Broken shop windows, overturned stalls and debris littered the streets.
    People at the market said that after the blast, police fired at passers-by, killing one person.
    "There was an explosion and we were standing there. People were highly agitated and they started to evacuate the dead while police fired into the air but when the Americans and Major General Qais arrived, they (police) started to fire on the people. They killed our neighbour Hassoun who sells tomato paste. He was hit by two bullets in his head and his brain went out. He was taken to the intensive care and at 1115 p.m. we were told by the hospital that he died," said one of the shop keepers.
    Hilla, a Shi'ite city surrounded by restive Sunni Arab countryside 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, has seen numerous bloody bombings over the past two years.
    Around the same time, a bomb strapped to a parked motorcycle killed seven people at a market in a mainly Shi'ite village northeast of Baghdad, witnesses and police said.
    Monday was one of the bloodiest days in Iraq since the killing of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. air strike on June
    At least 11 other people were reported killed in shootings and bombings across the country.
    The country's sectarian violence of the past four months has pushed the number of displaced people to above 130,000, parliament heard on Monday as members urged ministers to give more aid and security to contain the crisis.
    Iraq's Ministry of Displaced and Migration now puts the number of internal refugees at 130,386, or 21,731 families.
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