|
Suicide bomber kills 41 in mosque attack Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-18T112353Z_01_YUE840676_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-1.xmlhttp://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-18T112353Z_01_YUE840676_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-1.xml
Suicide bombers kill 41 in mosque attacks
Fri Nov 18, 2005 11:24 AM GMT
By Faris al-Mehdawi
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers killed 41 people and wounded 75 when they blew themselves up inside two Shi'ite mosques in the east Iraq town of Khanaqin on Friday, police said, hours after an attack on a hotel in Baghdad.
The bombers attacked the mosques during Friday prayers and completely destroyed the buildings, police said. Another blast was reported near a bank in the town, police added.
The attacks in Khanaqin, a mixed Shi'ite and Kurdish town
northeast of Baghdad near the border with Iran, seemed certain to fuel sectarian tensions ahead of a December 15 election that Washington hopes will pave the way for peace and democracy two and a half years after the U.S.-led invasion.
The Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government and its U.S. backers are fighting a mainly Sunni Arab insurgency that has frequently targeted civilians in crowded places like mosques and markets.
Police said the bombers entered the small mosques in Khanaqin with explosive belts strapped to their waists and detonated themselves when the buildings were at their busiest -- during prayers on the Muslim holy day.
Earlier this month, nearly 30 people were killed at a Shi'ite mosque in the town of Musayyib, south of Baghdad.
Earlier on Friday in Baghdad, two suicide truck bombs targeted a prominent hotel but failed to pierce the perimeter and destroyed an apartment block instead, killing at least six people, including two children, police said.
The blast was also in the area of an interior ministry prison bunker at the centre of a detainee abuse scandal that has deepened sectarian tensions, but the U.S. military and security experts said the Hamra Hotel was the primary target.
BODY PARTS IN POOL
Police said at least six people died and 40 were wounded in the near simultaneous blasts. There were no reports of foreign casualties. Witnesses at the hotel said victims' body parts were found in the swimming pool and in the street outside.
Security camera footage showed a white van driving up to blast walls at the exterior perimeter of the hotel complex and exploding. About 20 seconds later the second explosion blew out the camera.
The nearby apartment building was reduced to rubble, about 20 cars were destroyed and dozens of firefighters and soldiers were searching for residents trapped beneath wreckage.
Distraught women in black veils slapped their heads as they surveyed the destruction. A man embraced a weeping woman.
U.S. Colonel Ed Cardon told reporters at the scene that two vehicles drove at blast walls protecting the Hamra. The plan appeared to be for the first to open a path for the second to breach the outer defences and cause more damage, he said.
A foreign security consultant said it looked like a clear attempt to get inside the hotel compound. It was the second major attack on high-profile hotels in Baghdad in a month. The Sheraton and Palestine hotels were hit in late October.
About three hours later, U.S. troops blew up a suspected car bomb in the same vicinity.
The Hamra is several hundred yards (metres) from the secret Interior Ministry bunker raided on Sunday by U.S. forces who found 170 prisoners, mostly Sunni Arabs, some of whom had apparently been beaten, starved and tortured.
But the bombers did not target checkpoints or defences of the interior ministry compound, and the method mirrored the previous hotel bombings, with one bomber trying to breach the first line of blast walls and another following behind. In the attack on the Sheraton and Palestine, three vehicles were used.
"A truck bomb hit this wall and blew up part of the wall. And then another small truck tried to penetrate and blow up these buildings," Cardon said.
"Instead, what happened is both trucks blew up right here and did tremendous damage to this apartment building right here, wounding scores of innocent people," he said.
The subject of the nearby bunker at the centre of the prisoner abuse scandal was raised by furious residents.
"They targeted Shi'ite houses here regardless of the hotel and they did not target the shelter (bunker). I had to pull a 15-year-old girl from the rubble," said Hameed Taha.
U.S. and Iraqi troops secured the site while rescue workers dug through the rubble of the apartment building destroyed by the blast. Windows were broken at the Hamra and there was damage to other buildings nearby.
At a Baghdad hospital where the wounded were taken, a woman said: "The room fell on me. My leg was burnt."
(Additional reporting Salem Uraibi)
|
|
