Monday, April 16, 2007
Destruction of bridges seen as plot to split Baghdad
Security
(Al Jazeera) - After the Sarafiya bridge was destroyed in a suicide attack, Iraqis fear that the recent targeting of bridges in Baghdad is a plot to divide the city. On Saturday, a suicide car bomber blew himself up at a ramp leading to the Jadriyah bridge, causing no structural damage. It is unclear if the two attacks were related; but the US military said on Sunday that fighters appeared to be changing tactics.
"The constant strategy of the terrorists is to look at ways to divide and create terror and make life difficult for the people of Iraq," Mark Fox, a spokesman for the US military in Iraq told reporters, saying military planners were studying the two incidents "carefully". "The terrorists are planning to split Karkh from Rusafa," said a senior Shia minister, using Baghdad's ancient names for the west bank (Karkh) and the east bank (Rusafa). "This has been the plan by terrorists and their political allies all along to try and drive Shia out of Karkh so they can split Baghdad in half."
On the other side of the divide, Mahmoud Mashhadani, parliament speaker and an outspoken Sunni politician, called the destruction of the Sarafiya bridge as a "conspiracy to isolate the two halves of Baghdad." Sunnis now mainly live on the west side of the river and Shia on the east.
(Al Jazeera) - After the Sarafiya bridge was destroyed in a suicide attack, Iraqis fear that the recent targeting of bridges in Baghdad is a plot to divide the city. On Saturday, a suicide car bomber blew himself up at a ramp leading to the Jadriyah bridge, causing no structural damage. It is unclear if the two attacks were related; but the US military said on Sunday that fighters appeared to be changing tactics.
"The constant strategy of the terrorists is to look at ways to divide and create terror and make life difficult for the people of Iraq," Mark Fox, a spokesman for the US military in Iraq told reporters, saying military planners were studying the two incidents "carefully". "The terrorists are planning to split Karkh from Rusafa," said a senior Shia minister, using Baghdad's ancient names for the west bank (Karkh) and the east bank (Rusafa). "This has been the plan by terrorists and their political allies all along to try and drive Shia out of Karkh so they can split Baghdad in half."
On the other side of the divide, Mahmoud Mashhadani, parliament speaker and an outspoken Sunni politician, called the destruction of the Sarafiya bridge as a "conspiracy to isolate the two halves of Baghdad." Sunnis now mainly live on the west side of the river and Shia on the east.
Look at the map links to see how Baghdad's sectarian make-up has changed drastically between 2003-2007.
Labels: Jadriyah bridge, Karkh, Rusafa, Sarafiya bridge
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Suicide bombs in Karbala, Baghdad
Security
(Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed at least 40 people and wounded 128 at a crowded bus station near a major Shi'ite shrine in the Iraqi holy city of Kerbala on Saturday, police and hospital sources said. In Baghdad, police said a suicide car bomber detonated his device before a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing 10 people, wounding 15 and burning several cars in the second major attack on a bridge in the capital in the past two days.
Saturday's violence came a day after leaders from across Iraq's sectarian divide pleaded for unity as they gathered under high security at a special session of parliament to condemn a suicide bombing that tore through the building on Thursday.
A police source put the death toll in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad, at 65. But Khaled al-Rubaie, media director of al-Husseini hospital in Kerbala, said 41 people had been killed and 128 wounded, many of them women and children. Salim Katham, media director of Kerbala's health directorate, said 32 people were killed and 58 wounded. The attack occurred near a crowded market and some 200 meters from the Imam Hussein shrine, where the grandson of Islam's Prophet Mohammad is buried -- one of the most important sites for Shi'ites.
Saturday's violence came a day after leaders from across Iraq's sectarian divide pleaded for unity as they gathered under high security at a special session of parliament to condemn a suicide bombing that tore through the building on Thursday.
A police source put the death toll in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad, at 65. But Khaled al-Rubaie, media director of al-Husseini hospital in Kerbala, said 41 people had been killed and 128 wounded, many of them women and children. Salim Katham, media director of Kerbala's health directorate, said 32 people were killed and 58 wounded. The attack occurred near a crowded market and some 200 meters from the Imam Hussein shrine, where the grandson of Islam's Prophet Mohammad is buried -- one of the most important sites for Shi'ites.
Labels: car bomb, Jadriyah bridge, Kerbala
