| Baghdad bombing kills 34 children { September 30 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-093004iraq_lat,1,660220.story?coll=la-home-headlineshttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-093004iraq_lat,1,660220.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Baghdad Bombings Kill 34 Children By Edmund Sanders Times Staff Writer
11:37 AM PDT, September 30, 2004
Three car bombs ripped through a low-income Baghdad suburb today as residents were celebrating the opening of a new sewage pump, killing at least 42 Iraqis — including 34 children who had gathered after the first explosion to survey the damage.
Ten U.S. soldiers who were helping victims and securing the bombsite were also wounded by the second and third explosions.
Witnesses said suicide bombers raced their cars directly toward U.S. positions. The use of multiple bombs — timed to ensnare rescue workers and bystanders — represented an alarming new tactic by insurgents in Iraq, though such strategies have been deployed in other terrorist-plagued regions.
The afternoon attack capped another bloody morning in Iraq. A suicide bomber in Abu Ghraib rammed a checkpoint, killing one U.S. soldier and two Iraqi National Guard members. A car bomb in the northern Iraq city of Tal Afar killed four Iraqis.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a coalition soldier was killed by a rocket strike at a military base near Baghdad International Airport. Arab-satellite channel Al-Jazeera aired a video showing 10 new hostages, including six Iraqis, two Indonesian women and two Lebanese men.
U.S. warplanes also launched another airstrike today against a hide-out for followers of Abu Zarqawi who were believed to be planning insurgent attacks, the military said. Hospital officials in Fallouja were quoted as saying at least four Iraqis were killed and eight more were wounded in the attacks.
Zarqawi is a Jordanian-born fugitive who has been long blamed by U.S. leaders for creating waves of violence in Iraq. The U.S. has stepped up attacks in recent weeks against his network in order to wrest control of the area away from rebel hands.
Even for a city numbed by more than a year of terrorist strikes and bloodshed, the car bomb attacks in the down-trodden Amal district of Baghdad were particularly traumatic.
Hysterical mothers — still bleeding from their own wounds — beat their heads and pulled at their hair, grieving over lost children. Victims lay in the street, tugging at the lifeless bodies of loved ones.
Charred pieces of one of the car bombs lay mangled in the road with the twisted pieces of two red bicycles, whose wheels were decorated with colorful feathers and plastic balls.
"The attack was carried out by evil people who do not want the Iraqis to celebrate and don't want (reconstruction) projects in Iraq," Lt. Ahmad Saad, a member of the Iraqi National Guard, told the Associated Press.
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