IRAQ: Suicide bomber in Baghdad kills 60 and wounds 221 after luring a crowd of poor with the promise of work

Record ID: 356402

  • Title: IRAQ: Suicide bomber in Baghdad kills 60 and wounds 221 after luring a crowd of poor with the promise of work
  • Date: 12th December 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) EYEWITNESS WALEED, SAYING: "This explosion happened at about seven o'clock in the morning. A Nissan car was parked near the workers. When the workers gathered together the bomb was detonated."
  • Embargoed: 27th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVABNLWO654W3LJOX8TK334059XQ
  • Story Text: A suicide bomber targeting poor labourers killed 60 people in Baghdad on Tuesday (December 12) as President George W. Bush prepared to review his unpopular Iraq policy in a video teleconference with U.S. military commanders in Iraq.
    Interior Ministry sources said 221 people were wounded in the Baghdad blast after the suicide bomber lured a crowd of day labourers to his vehicle with the promise of work.
    The 7 a.m. attack took place in Tayaran Square, a popular gathering point for carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, painters and other workers who frequent the cafes and street vendors while waiting for the chance of some work. Many of the workers who gather at Tayaran Square are poor Shi'ites.
    "This explosion happened at about seven o'clock in the morning. A Nissan car was parked near the workers. When the workers gathered together the bomb was detonated," Waleed, an eyewitness, said.
    Calling the attack a "horrible massacre", Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed it on Saddam Hussein sympathisers and Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.
    "These terrorist groups are trying to spread chaos by killing and fuelling sectarian strife," he said in a statement.
    The explosion, which sent a cloud of black smoke into the sky, set many cars on fire. Gunfire sounded after the blast.
    Iraq is gripped by violence between majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam but now the backbone of the insurgency.
    A new poll has shown that most Americans support a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops, putting Bush under strong pressure to shift course in Iraq, where 2,931 U.S. troops have died since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
    A week after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gave Bush 79 recommendations for changing direction in the unpopular Iraq war, Bush did not appear to be warming to some of its major conclusions as he prepared his own plan.
    He will hold a video teleconference on Tuesday with U.S. military commanders in Baghdad, then meet Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni. He visits the Pentagon on Wednesday (December 13).
    The bipartisan report called for direct talks with Iran and Syria and for U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraq by early 2008, but Bush has declined to embrace either recommendation.
    He has not ruled out a regional conference to help Iraq, involving Iran and Syria, but the White House indicated Iraq would have to set it up.
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