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Iraq

Bombings kill dozens in Baghdad

By wire services
Published August 18, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three car bombs exploded Wednesday near a crowded bus station and a nearby hospital where survivors were being taken, killing as many as 43 people in the deadliest suicide attack in Baghdad in weeks. Rescuers used bolt cutters to free some victims hurled into barbed wire fences by the blast.

The attacks came as Iraq's main Sunni Arab party denounced the talks on Iraq's constitution, raising doubts the document can win Sunni support and lure Sunnis from the insurgency.

Police said the first bomb blew up at the Nadha bus terminal, the city's largest, shortly before 8 a.m. as swarms of travelers were boarding buses. As Iraqi police rushed to the scene, a suicide driver detonated a vehicle in the station's parking lot.

Another suicide bomber blew up a car a half hour later across the street from nearby Kindi Hospital, to which ambulances were transporting the injured.

Police Capt. Nabil Abdul-Qader said 43 people were killed and 85 were wounded in the attacks. The U.S. military put the casualty toll at 38 dead and 68 injured.

Terrified survivors - many weeping and screaming - scrambled about the smoking, charred hulks of buses and cars looking for signs of relatives. Several weeping men hugged inside the open-air terminal. One man searched through the charred buses for his brother and cousin.

Several of the dead near Kindi Hospital were hurled into barbed wire fences, and rescuers had to use bolt cutters to free the bodies.

Jawad Kadhum, 41, had come from Basra to Baghdad seeking an appointment to a government job. He got the job and was waiting at the bus station to go home when the blasts hit. He was knocked unconscious, with a severely injured leg.

"I came here to find a job, and I thank God I found it. But instead of celebrating, look at me," he said at the hospital.

Four suspects were detained at the bus station on suspicion of involvement in the bombings, the Transportation Ministry said.

The attacks Wednesday were the deadliest series of single-day suicide bombings in Baghdad since mid July, although suicide attacks with far lower death tolls occur here near daily.

Iraq national security adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie blamed the bombings on terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaida in Iraq. "This is a very clear indication that they are trying to incite sectarian war in this country," Rubaie said.

The latest attacks occurred shortly before the leaders of Iraq's political factions met to try to finish the constitution by the new deadline Monday. If no agreement can be reached this time, the interim constitution requires parliament be dissolved and a new transitional assembly and government be elected in December.

Some Shiite officials spoke of progress in the Wednesday talks.

However, the largest Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, issued an attack on the drafting committee, accusing it of bias and incompetence. The party, which has members on the committee, said major differences remain.

Elsewhere Wednesday:

The U.S. said two more American soldiers were killed this week. One died Tuesday when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol in southwest Baghdad and another on Monday in an attack in northern Iraq.

Six new Iraqi soldier recruits heading to a training camp in Kirkuk were killed after gunmen stopped their minibus, Iraqi officials said. Three people were killed Wednesday when a car bomb exploded in Fallujah.

The U.S. military said it is investigating a clash Tuesday in Baghdad during which Iraqi civilians were injured after insurgents opened fire on a U.S. patrol and U.S. helicopters fired back. Iraqi police said one civilian was killed and 23 wounded.

Information from the Associated Press, New York Times and Knight Ridder news service was used in this report.

[Last modified August 18, 2005, 01:06:07]