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Thread: Iraq car bombing causes carnage

  1. #1

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    I don't want to break the good news streak... but...

    Iraq car bombing causes carnage

    At least 114 people have been killed by a massive car bomb in the worst single such incident since the US-led invasion nearly two years ago.

    At least 130 others were wounded in the blast in Hilla, 100km (60 miles) south of the capital, Baghdad.

    The car, reportedly driven by a suicide bomber, exploded near a queue of people applying for government jobs.

    UN Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms".

    He said the only purpose of such "repeated acts of senseless violence" was to "undermine the prospects for a democratic and prosperous Iraq".

    He urged all sides to "put aside their differences and work together in a spirit of national reconciliation".

    Iraqi insurgents are waging a violent campaign against US-backed authorities, targeting anyone associated with the government.

    Death toll 'to rise'

    Local police said a suicide car bomb "hit a gathering of people who were applying for work in the security services".

    Several people were arrested in connection with the blast, the police said.

    Torn limbs, feet and other body parts littered the street after the blast.

    Footage showed pools of blood at the scene, with dozens of people helping to put body parts into blankets. Shoes and tattered clothes were piled up in a corner.

    "I was lined up near the medical centre, waiting for my turn for the medical exam in order to apply for work in the police," Abdullah Salih, 22, told the Associated Press.

    "Suddenly I heard a very big explosion. I was thrown several metres away and I had burns in my legs and hands, then I was taken to the hospital," he said.

    Muhsin Hadi, 29, broke his leg in the blast. "I was lucky because I was the last person in line when the explosion took place," he told AP.

    The director of the Hilla teaching hospital, Mohammed Dia, told the BBC the explosion was far worse than anything the town had experienced before.

    He said the number of dead was likely to rise, partly because some of the injured were in a serious condition, and partly because some of the victims had been blown to pieces.

    "All the hospital's rooms, even those used for cardiology, are filled with the wounded," he said.

    Security

    A medical official told the Reuters news agency that local people had been called on to donate blood and that expert assistance had been requested from further afield.

    A spokesman for Iraq's Red Crescent Society said the agency was also sending emergency medicine and doctors to the town.

    The attack comes as Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Iraq's security forces were still unable to take on the insurgency without the help of US troops.

    "Iraqis should be able to start taking over more and more security responsibilities very soon," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

    "But we will continue to need and to seek assistance for some time to come."

    Iraqi groups are holding talks over forming a new, Shia-dominated government following last month's general elections.

    Hilla is a mainly Shia town, and Sunni militants have been openly striking at Shia targets in an attempt to stir up sectarian strife, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad.

    In another incident, a US soldier was shot and killed in Baghdad on Sunday while manning a traffic checkpoint, the US military says.
    Source:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4303629.stm



    I wonder who the hell is training these insurgents in making such powerful car bombs... this, as far as I know, has been the single worst car bomb terrorist attack in World history.
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  2. #2
    MareNostrum's Avatar Wanted: Dead or Alive
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    oh come on..the insurgency is an "outdated" issue...

    UN Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned the attack
    "in the strongest possible terms".
    He urged all sides to "put aside their differences and work together in a spirit of national reconciliation".
    I really find these kind of comments pretty useless..


    I wonder who the hell is training these insurgents in making
    such powerful car bombs
    Well since the terrorist cells most likely work isolated from others.., I also wonder how these groups work and how they pass their knowledge and materials to each other.

    If it is something that they gain during training than most likely some people are making $$$ with selling weapons and knowledge to the leaders of the terrorist organization.

    I just dont know exactly what to think of it... Should we think of a scenario in which the terrorists receive "knowledge and materials" from other cells, or from their "superiors"..

    Or should we see them, in a way as computer "hackers"..
    Sitting in a room and thinking on how to improve their own work..

    ---
    *edit*

    interesting.. just something I read in an article

    Bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding on the rugged border between Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Pakistan, is thought to communicate with his deputies by courier, taped messages and other means. In January 2004, Kurdish forces in Northern Iraq detained one courier, Hassan Ghul, who was carrying a letter written by al-Zarqawi to bin Laden. In it, al-Zarqawi proposed trying to start a civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Muslim populations.
    Well since the insurgents still are able to conduct attacks.. since obviously their methods are becoming more lethal, and since that there obvious signs that the insurgents are better organized than most of us would expect, we should not downplay the role of insurgency and to see it as something "outdated". Yes, there is progress in Iraq, but this progress is still covered with blood...


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  3. #3

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    Iraq army had their share of skilled engineers. They most definitely had knowledge on how to make most of explosives so it is hardly sign of something special that they are able to blow up more than before.

    Even if they didn't have access to military personell there is definite advantage from hands on practice. You can't expect their people not to learn on the way.


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    MareNostrum's Avatar Wanted: Dead or Alive
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    DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq (news - web sites) said on Tuesday it was behind a suicide car bomb attack that killed 125 people in the town of Hilla, according to a Web statement.

    ** "A lion from our martyrdom brigade plunged into a gathering of apostates in front of a police and National Guard registration center, blowing up his loaded car and killing 125 apostates," said the statement by Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq, posted on an Islamist Web site.

    The claim for Monday's attack could not be verified, but was posted in the name of the user who usually disseminates statements by al Qaeda in Iraq. It appeared on the Islamist Web site most often used by Iraqi insurgents.
    it is hardly sign of something special that they are able to blow up more than before
    but wasn't this car bomb more powerful than all the others? Not referring to the amount of casualties it has caused.. but the explosion itself..


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  5. #5

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    Like I said, that particular bomb may have been built by professional soldier who knows his way around explosives or they simply have learned through method of trying and failing to get more out of the explosive.

    Or they may have had more explosive material in the car.
    2 kilos of TNT tend to be more powerful than 1 kilo.


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  6. #6
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    I wonder who the hell is training these insurgents in making such powerful car bombs... this, as far as I know, has been the single worst car bomb terrorist attack in World history.
    It's not unkown for mercenary advisors to help terrorist groups, for instance, we know that someone from the RIRA was advising columbian rebels in the 1990s, we just appeared to have arrested the wrong chaps.

    Also, if we are to assume that Al'Qaeda (the Iraqi outlet) is behind it, remember the Istanbul bombings, they were fairly big.
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