IRAQ: CAR BOMB EXPLODES IN KERBALA KILLING TWELVE PEOPLE AND WOUNDING MORE THAN THIRTY OTHERS

Record ID: 358785

  • Title: IRAQ: CAR BOMB EXPLODES IN KERBALA KILLING TWELVE PEOPLE AND WOUNDING MORE THAN THIRTY OTHERS
  • Date: 20th December 2004
  • Summary: (W5) KERBALA, IRAQ (DECEMBER 19, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE SHOT OF BLAST AREA WITH POLICE CARS AND FIRE ENGINE ARRIVING 2. CLOSE UP OF FIRE ENGINE 3. PEOPLE NEAR WRECKAGE OF CAR SIRENS OF AMBULANCES 4. PEOPLE AND POLICE IN STREET 5. PEOPLE NEAR WRECKAGE OF CARS 6. SMOULDERING WRECKAGE OF CARS/ PAN TO WRECKED CARS
  • Embargoed: 4th January 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: KERBALA, IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVAE9AAGA1X1AI1D54C2OK7RDHBF
  • Story Text: A car bomb explodes in Kerbala, killing 12 people
    and wounding more than 30 others.

    A car bomb exploded near a police academy and a bus
    station in the Iraqi Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala on Sunday
    (December 19, 2004), killing 12 people and wounding more than
    30 others, witnesses said.

    A cameraman for Reuters who filmed the immediate
    aftermath of the Kerbala attack said the ground around the
    city's open air
    bus station was littered with dead and wounded.

    The main hospital said 12 people were killed and at
    least 34 wounded, but an official emphasised that it was a
    provisional toll and the numbers could rise. He said all
    appeared to be civilians and there were many women and
    children among them.

    It was the second attack in five days in Kerbala, home
    to two important Shi'ite shrines, putting the city at the
    centre of concerns that Sunni militants will exploit
    sectarian divisions to cause mayhem in the run up to Iraq's
    January 30 election.

    On Wednesday, a bomb apparently targeting Shi'ite
    cleric Abdul Mehdi al-Kerbalai, exploded as he was
    returning to his office after evening prayers at the Imam
    Hussein shrine. Sunday's bomb was just a few hundred metres
    (yards) away.

    Ten people, including four of Kerbalai's bodyguards,
    were killed and more than 30 wounded in Wednesday's attack,
    including
    the cleric, who is regarded as close to Iraq's supreme
    Shi'ite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

    It was the first major assault in the city since March,
    when co-ordinated suicide bombings during an annual
    religious festival
    killed more than 90 people, an act blamed on Sunni militant
    Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who allies himself with
    al Qaeda.


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