IRAQ: Residents of Shi'ite district in Baghdad mourn their dead after a car bomb killed 35 people

Record ID: 356296

  • Title: IRAQ: Residents of Shi'ite district in Baghdad mourn their dead after a car bomb killed 35 people
  • Date: 22nd May 2009
  • Summary: SHULA, BAGHDAD, IRAQ (MAY 21, 2009) (REUTERS) AMBULANCE ENTERING HOSPITAL SIGN READING "MARTYR MOHAMMED BAQER AL-SADR HOSPITAL" WOUNDED MAN LYING ON BED WOUNDED MAN WITH BANDAGED EYE AND HEAD LYING ON BED PEOPLE CRYING NEAR VAN CARRYING COFFIN ON TOP WOODEN COFFIN ON TOP OF VAN (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED RELATIVE OF A MAN KILLED IN BLAST, SAYING: "This cannot
  • Embargoed: 6th June 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAE07P2C6AC9EU0ZBQ25BKH4I5X
  • Story Text: A car bomb ripped through the poor mostly Shi'ite district of Shula in northwest Baghdad on Wednesday (May 20), killing 35 people and wounding 72 others near a popular restaurant, police said.
    Shula, which borders a largely Sunni area, was once the site of intense sectarian violence and a long-time stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia. Like the rest of the city, it has calmed down significantly in the past year and a half.
    Al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist groups consider Shi'ites heretics, and have long targeted Shi'ite areas and festivals in Iraq.
    The bombing of the Shi'ite Askari shrine in 2006 unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodletting that subsided only last year.
    Security has broadly improved since the height of the sectarian violence, but a rash of bombings in April made it the deadliest month for civilians since November.
    The last large-scale bomb attack in Iraq was on April 29, when 51 people were killed in twin car bomb attacks in the Shi'ite Sadr City district of Baghdad.
    Shula has been targeted by bombers before. Four people were killed in a blast on December 25 last year.
    The recent attacks raise questions about whether Iraq can avoid sliding back into greater bloodshed as an untested military prepares to take greater security responsibility and U.S. troops prepare for a full withdrawal by the end of 2011.
    Iraqi security forces on Monday aired a video tape of a what they said was the captured leader of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda-linked organisation blamed for years of bloodshed in the country, but the group has denied the claim.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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