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Suicide bomber kills 68 in iraq attack Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5799092http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5799092
Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 68 in Iraq Attack
Wed Jul 28, 2004 08:51 AM ET
By Faris Mehdawi
BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - A minibus packed with explosives blew up near a police station and a market north of Baghdad Wednesday, killing 68 people and wounding 30 in the worst attack since the handover of power exactly one month ago.
The powerful suicide bomb left a sea of destruction, obliterating market stalls and destroying several buildings. It raises fears of a fresh insurgent campaign just days before Iraq holds a major political conference to plot its future.
It was the worst death toll from a single bomb attack in Iraq since a blast outside a mosque in the holy city of Najaf last August killed more than 80 people.
Reuters Television pictures showed at least a dozen bodies scattered across a street, some of them still on fire.
A severely wounded man, his clothes burned and torn and his body covered in blood, sat among smoldering ruins with several dead, some of whom looked like children, lying near him.
A Health Ministry official said 68 people were killed and 30 wounded in the blast shortly after 10 a.m. (0600 GMT) in Baquba, an often violent town 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad.
He said the death toll could rise, with many of those injured receiving shrapnel wounds to the chest.
Twenty-one people traveling in a minibus alongside the one that detonated were killed, an Interior Ministry source said.
It was the deadliest day in Iraq since June 24, when more than 100 people were killed in a string of bomb blasts, suicide attacks and armed assaults across the country.
The blast also came a month to the day after the interim government took back sovereignty, and three days before a major political conference to chart Iraq's future.
There were several other incidents across the country on Wednesday, creating the impression of a coordinated campaign.
A mortar or rocket struck a busy street in Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five, witnesses said. South of Baghdad, seven members of Iraq's security forces, backed by U.S. and Ukrainian troops, died in a gunbattle in which 35 insurgents were killed, Poland's defense ministry said.
No U.S. or Ukrainian forces were wounded or killed.
SEA OF DESTRUCTION
As well as tearing through scores of civilians as they shopped at the market, the Baquba bomb struck a group of men lining up at a nearby recruiting office for the Iraqi police.
"We had gathered them at one place to register their names. There was a queue, when suddenly this vehicle appeared and exploded," said a police officer at the scene.
Firefighters arrived to douse the flames, sometimes having to point their hoses at still burning dead bodies.
"God bless them, what have they done?" shouted one man, referring to the victims.
Baquba, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town, is home to many former members of the Iraqi army and has experienced frequent car bombings and suicide attacks over the past year.
Many of those have targeted Iraq's police and National Guard, who guerrillas regard as collaborating with U.S. and other foreign troops stationed in Iraq.
SECURITY RISKS
The violence comes three days before Iraq is due to convene a national conference in which 1,000 delegates will gather in Baghdad to weigh the country's future and elect a 100-member National Council to oversee the interim government.
The event is billed as a crucial next step in Iraq's transition to democracy ahead of elections planned for January, but there are security concerns, particularly with so many people converging on the capital.
U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces have been planning the security for weeks and are particularly concerned about suicide car bomb attacks like one that assassinated the former head of the Iraqi Governing Council earlier this year.
Fouad Massoum, the organizer of the event, said Tuesday he was committed to holding it this month and said the credibility of Iraq's new government depended on it.
"Credibility is essential because any delay would be explained in a negative way, especially given that Iraq lived for decades under promises that were never fulfilled," he said, adding it would start on July 31 for one or two days.
Conference participants also face the threat of kidnapping after dozens of people, mostly foreign truck drivers, have been kidnapped by insurgents in the past three months and threatened with death if their employers or national governments don't pull out of Iraq.
In the past week, several senior Iraq officials have been seized or escaped attempts, too. Wednesday, a Web Site posted a picture of what it said was the severed head of a Bulgarian taken hostage earlier this month. (Additional reporting by Dean Yates, Mariam Karouny and Edmund Blair in Baghdad)
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