Car bombs kill 15 in Baghdad shopping area
Source: Reuters
(Adds Washington demonstration and latest U.S. troop deaths) By Erik de Castro BAGHDAD, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Two car bombs killed 15 people in a mainly Shi'ite Muslim area of Baghdad on Saturday in the latest in a series of attacks by militants on crowded shopping areas in the Iraqi capital. The week-long string of bombings has further disrupted life in Baghdad, spreading fear among the city's 7 million residents awaiting a planned U.S.-backed offensive to tighten the government's fragile grip over its largely lawless capital. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office said U.S. President George W. Bush had expressed his full backing for the Baghdad security plan during phone talks with Maliki on Saturday. Bush has said he will send 21,500 extra troops to Iraq, most to Baghdad, but has run into fierce opposition from the new Democrat-dominated Congress as well as public disapproval. In Washington, tens of thousands of people demonstrated to press Bush's administration to get out of Iraq, chanting "Bring our troops home." Troops who have served in Iraq and their families joined some U.S. legislators, peace groups and actors, including Vietnam war protester Jane Fonda, to urge Congress and Bush to stop funding the war. "When I served in the war, I thought I was serving honourably. Instead, I was sent to war ... for causes that have proved fraudulent," said Garett Reppenhagen, a former sniper, who was cheered by the crowd. Saturday's attacks occurred in New Baghdad in the east of the capital, targeting weekend shoppers thronging shops and market stalls selling fruit and exotic birds. A Reuters journalist saw eight bodies being loaded into ambulances and body parts lying in the street. Dead birds lay in cages in an area that appeared to have been reserved for a bird market. Several cars were ablaze. QUICK-FIRE BLASTS Police said 15 people had been killed and 55 wounded in the quick-fire blasts at a street intersection. One police source said the blasts were both the work of suicide bombers in cars, while another said there had been one suicide bomb and a second bomb in a parked car. In the worst attack this week, 88 people were killed in twin car bomb blasts in the Bab al-Sharji market in central Baghdad, an area home to both Sunni Arab and Shi'ite traders. Bombers also struck a Shi'ite shopping area in central Karrada district on Thursday, killing 26, and on Friday killed 15 people in an attack on the city's famous pet market. Maliki, from Iraq's majority Shi'ite community, has blamed many of the bombings on Sunni militants and supporters of Saddam Hussein, whose botched execution last month angered many fellow members of his once-dominant Sunni minority. Most of the extra U.S. troops are destined for Baghdad, seen as the epicentre of the violence that is fuelled on the one hand by Shi'ite militias linked to parties in Maliki's government, and Sunni militants, including al Qaeda, on the other. "The U.S. president repeated ... his commitment to support the Baghdad security plan and his complete readiness to provide the requirements for its success," Maliki's office said of the phone call between the two leaders. Earlier this month Maliki called for more equipment for his security forces, saying that would allow them to take over responsibility for security more quickly. Despite Maliki's announcement earlier this month of the new offensive to regain control of Baghdad's streets from sectarian death squads, violence has continued unabated with militants killing scores of people every week. Gunmen dressed in police commando uniforms abducted eight people from a central Baghdad computer store on Saturday in the latest mass kidnapping to hit the Iraqi capital, police said. Gunmen dragged out employees from the store, situated on a main road, and bundled them into waiting cars. There had been a relative lull in such mass abductions in the past few weeks. A rocket was fired into the international Green Zone in Baghdad on Saturday and a witness said it appeared to have landed in the U.S. embassy grounds. A U.S. embassy official said two people were lightly wounded. They were not embassy staff. U.S. forces killed 14 insurgents in an air strike on Saturday in an area near Baghdad where Sunni guerrillas are battling Iraqi government and U.S. troops. The U.S. military said a series of roadside bombs had killed seven U.S. soldiers in Iraq over the past three days. A total of 3,067 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam. (Additional reporting by Ross Colvin, Mussab Al-Khairalla, Claudia Parsons and Mariam Karouny)
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