Blasts kill over 120 in Iraq; 5 US soilders die (AP) Updated: 2005-11-20 13:54
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber detonated his car in a crowd of Shiite
mourners north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 36 people and raising
the death toll in two days of attacks against Shiites to more than 120. Five
American soldiers died in roadside bombings.
A wounded Iraqi walks on debris after two car bombs exploded
near a Baghdad hotel. At least 67 worshippers were killed in suicide
attacks on two Shiite mosques in eastern Iraq near the border with Iran,
hours after suicide bombers killed six people outside a Baghdad hotel.
[AP] | Earlier Saturday, a car bomb exploded
in a crowd of shoppers at an outdoor market in a mostly Shiite neighborhood on
the southeast edge of Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding about 20 others,
police reported. Witnesses said they saw a man park the car and walk away
shortly before the blast.
In the north, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a suspected al-Qaida hideout in
Mosul and at least seven insurgents died — three committing suicide to avoid
capture, Iraqi authorities said. Four Iraqi policemen also were killed and 11
U.S. troops wounded, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.
The second suicide car bomb exploded late in the afternoon as mourners
offered condolences to Raad Majid, head of the municipal council in the village
of Abu Saida, over the death of his uncle. Abu Saida is near Baqouba, a
religiously mixed city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Police said about 50 people were injured. On Oct. 29, a bomb hidden in a
truck loaded with dates exploded in another Shiite community in the same area,
killing 30 people.
Ambulances streamed into the main hospital in Baqouba ferrying the wounded
from Saturday's blast; many were rushed directly into operating rooms where
doctors worked frantically to save them.
Hospital facilities were so crowded that dazed and bloodied survivors — many
with serious injuries — lay in agony on gurneys in the hallways because of the
surgery backlog. Doctors and nurses in blood-spattered white uniforms rushed
from gurney to gurney trying to determine who to treat first.
|