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Bomb blast kills 47, injures 114 in Iraq
AT the blast site, rescuers pulled bodies from mangled market stalls. The area was littered with shoes, clothes and body parts as well as fruits and vegetables from the market.
Bloodstained bodies lay on pavements strewn with chains, glass and rubble from blown out shop fronts. Dazed bystanders vainly checked bodies for signs of life.
Smoke from blazing vehicles in the middle of the street billowed into the sky as fire crews tried to douse the flames A huge crater was punched into the road. Ambulances with sirens wailing ferried the dead and wounded to hospital as the United States helicopters buzzed overhead.
This was Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, mired in fresh bomb explosion that claimed 47 people and injured 114 others.
The U.S. army and Iraqi Interior Ministry said the blast was a car bomb attack on the police building in Haifa Street, a Baghdad area known as a haven for guerrillas and criminals.
The Interior Ministry and witnesses said there might have been at least two simultaneous car bomb blasts. Witnesses said mortars might also have been fired at the same time.
"I was standing there talking to my friend when suddenly all I saw was blood, and my friend lying dead,' said an Iraqi man who gave his name as Zafer, speaking from his hospital bed with blood and scratches on his face and bandages on this stomach.
Hospital workers hosed pools of blood from the floor.
In a separate attack in Baquba, Northeast of Baghdad, 12 policemen were killed and two wounded when gunmen opened fire on their minibus, a source at the town's main hospital said.
On Sunday, guerrillas mounted multiple car bomb and mortar attacks in central Baghdad during a day of violence in which more than 100 people were killed across the country.
Many of Sunday's casualties were also in Haifa Street, where U.S. troops have repeatedly clashed with guerrillas.
Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib visited the site of yesterday's blast and condemned the perpetrators.
"They are targeting the Iraqi people and they are trying to destroy Iraq. There powers won't stop the rebuilding of Iraq", he said. "There will be no space for the terrorists and the enemies of Iraq."
Fighting has surged in Iraq over the last few days after U.S.-led forces launched a drive to pacify areas of the country under guerrilla control ahead of elections due in January.
The American military has mounted several air strikes on Fallujah, a city controlled by insurgents. It says the attacks have targeted militants loyal to Jordanian al-Qaeda ally, Abu Musab-al-Zarqawi, who has claimed responsibility for a series of car bomb attacks and the killing of foreign hostages.
U.S. forces have also launched an offensive in Tal Afar, a mainly Turkmen town close to the Syrian border in northern Iraq, which it says has become a haven for foreign fighters.
The Health Ministry has said that at least 60 people were killed in fighting in Tal Afar over the past week.
Air Force Brigadier General Ery Lessel, deputy director of operations for the U.S. military in Iraq, said that the U.S. military was determined to restore stability to rebel-held areas before the planned elections.
"The overriding strategy is to gain local security control in all the cities throughout Iraq by the end of December," he said.
"That local control has to do with getting capable Iraqi security forces - police backed up by Iraqi National Guards and competent local authorities in control of the cities so that life can go on and reconstruction continue, creating conducive atmosphere for elections to take place."
A militant group led by al-Qaeda ally, Abu Musah al-Zargawi, said one of its suicide bombers carried out yesterday's attack.
"With the Grace of God, a lion from our martyrdom brigades was successful in striking a centre for apostate police volunteers," the military wing of the Tawhid and Jihad group said in the statement which could not be verified.
Iraqi Planning Minister Mahdi al-Hafidh has specified two political steps to overcome the current chaos in Iraq.
He said the first step was to prepare for the January elections to form parliament, adding, "the results will determine the nature of the constitution."
The second step, he said, was to allow the Independent Elections Committee perform its role effectively.
The minister emphasised that the completion of the political process in Iraq should not be relinquished.
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