From AP:
BASRA, Iraq - A series of car bombs ripped through police stations and an academy during rush hour Wednesday morning, killing at least 60 people, including schoolchildren, and wounding scores in the bloodiest attacks to hit this mainly Shiite city since the U.S.-led occupation began a year ago.Iraqis pulled charred and torn bodies from mangled vehicles in front of the Saudia police station, located by Basra's crowded main street market. Two vans carrying schoolchildren were destroyed, one carrying kindergardeners, the other carrying middle-school girls. Dead children, burned beyond recognition, were taken to hospital morgues.
Iraqi Interior Minister Samir Shaker Mahmoud al-Sumeidi blamed "terrorists." He said the Basra attacks resembled suicide bombings earlier this year against Shiites and Kurds that killed hundreds and were blamed on foreign Islamic militants.
"The information we have indicate that the attacks were carried out with car bombs," al-Sumeidi said. "As for who is behind Basra attacks, it is clear that that the fingerprints of the parties that were behind the massacres in Iraq as in Irbil and Karbala can be seen in today's attacks."
There was no immediate word who was behind the attack and al-Sumeidi said it was not yet clear whether the car bombs were set off by suicide bombers. U.S. officials have accused foreign Islamic militants in deadly suicide bombings in February against Shiite holy sites in Najaf and Baghdad aimed at sparking a Sunni-Shiite civil war in the country.
Basra Police Commander Mohammed Kadhim al-Ali said the cars were packed with missiles and TNT.
Casualty figures were hard to determine amid the chaos. Al-Sumeidi said more than 60 people were killed and 100 wounded, but Basra Gov. Wael Abdul-Latif said the death toll was at least 68, including 16 children and nine policemen, with 200 injured.
The bombings brought yet another front of violence as U.S. forces are locked in a standoff with a radical Shiite cleric in the holy city of Najaf and Sunni insurgents in the central city of Fallujah.
Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia was active in Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, during the early days of its uprising across the south this month. But its gunmen targeted coalition troops and the fighting died down in Basra after only a few days.
Meanwhile, an agreement aimed at bringing peace to Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, met troubles only a day after its implementation began. A heavy battle broke out Wednesday morning on the city's north side, where up to 40 insurgents attacked Marine positions, commanders said. Nine insurgents were killed, and three Marines were wounded, a spokesman said.
As of noon, no guerrillas had turned in any heavy weapons, the most crucial tenet of the agreement in U.S. eyes, said Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne. The U.S. military has warned it may resume its assault on Fallujah if the agreement falls through.
For now, the Marines were responding by halting a part of the agreement of great concern to the Fallujans, the return of families that fled during the fighting since April 5, Byrne said.
Wednesday's explosions tore into three police stations in Basra and the academy in the suburb of Zubair nearly simultanously after 7 a.m., as many residents were headed to markets, jobs or school. An hour later, another blast targeted the same police academy.
A large crater, 6-feet deep and 9-feet wide, was blown in the pavement outside the Saudia station, the facade of which was heavily damaged.
The wounded included two British soldiers at the police academy, Maj. Hisham al-Halawi, spokesman for British forces in Basra, told Al-Arabiya television.
British troops who tried to come to the Saudia station to help were met by angry Iraqis, blaming British for failing to keep security in the city.
"We don't know yet who committed these bombings," al-Halawi said.
Wednesday's battle on Fallujah's north side lasted for four hours, with Cobra helicopter gunships blasting with Gatling guns from the air. Witnesses reported tanks moving into the Jolan neighborhood where Marines said the attack was launched.
During the fighting, a few mosques blared messages calling gunmen to battle.
"…a few mosques blared messages calling gunmen to battle" tells the complete story. They are pre-conditioned, like Pavlov's dog, to respond, as they do five times a day, to do the bidding of the immam who stands in for allah. The immam personality system gives them room to abuse their spiritual/temporal office…and they do!
This story is the perfect example of the fact that we're in a war with terrorist murderers, not armies and soldiers. Mainstream media and the looney left should read this over and over again.
It will only get worse as the June 30th date nears. I sincerely hope that the West can stomach this and see it through.....the is a fight for our future!!!!
jihan
It would be best if the USA targets the radical muslim clerics with permnament removal from the surface of the earth, not only the Iraqi clerics but worldwide. These radical clerics should have the opportunity to meet Mohammed personally in HELL .
Is this the kind of country the Iraqis want for themselves? Why can't they bestir themselves and have an uprising against the forces who want to destroy their future? But no, it's so easy to blame the great Satan. Freedom has a price. They were %*&$*@#$%^ by Saddam all those years because they wouldn't fight back. Here they are again. I just have to tell myself our soldiers are not dying for Iraqi freedom (of which they apparently have zero appreciation) but ours.
Iraq: killing at least 60 people, including schoolchildren, and wounding scores in the bloodiest attacks to hit this mainly Shiite city since the U.S.-led occupation began a year ago.
Hood Jihadi:Wow! Just like the IDF uses Palestinian children for use as human shields (they don't go to houses without being accompanied by a relative whose shoulder is used to supports IDF gunmen), the Gay US Army follows the example of their masters in Kahnpital Hill.
In Peterism, the ideals of justice, tolerance and equality before the law, have been ruthlessly dismantled by the JewNazis. Why let them because they will never join your ham eating cult anyway?
As you celebrate the deaths of so many Muslim lives, I will mourn by withdrawing any more posts this evening in respect of all the Jihadist babies and women murdered by fascist racist Judeo-Peterist cowards.
If they were white, we would have seen many countries halting their support for the racist war on the Iraqi children and their families. But they are not - my Allah shall help them, down with "Jewhova".
Hood: You killed them and you and yours will reap what you have sown in'shallah. No one is fooled by what happened; no one. You believe you can easily lie. You are a psychopath. You will find that Hell will open upon you, not us.
"…a few mosques blared messages calling gunmen to battle" ...makes them a military target.
this attack and basra was so obviously linked to the bombing in saudi that i have no doubt that this was al qaeda's doing. what most of you seem to not understand is that the violence in iraq is very diverse. you have sunni iraqi jihadist, sunni bathists, shite jihadist, angry shite average person who is angry about the occupation, angry sunni average person who is angry about the occupation, and alqaeda supporters from all over doing there thing. the pure nature of this attack leads me to believe it was alqaeda sponsored because of the usage of suicide car bombers. then again maybe im wrong. ralph norton i really do not see how you can honestly think by killing there religious leaders you can make the situation better. if you already have people who are kinda angry you then kill there leaders it will just inflame them more to a point where a full on revolt will take place. why do you think our military has backed off on all the hard talk against sadr...
joseph- Religious leaders should be calming the situation, not inflaming by calling them to war or issuing violent fatwas or death sentences. The religious leaders, by advocating violence are not helping the rebuilding, nor helping the average angry person to channel anger into something constructive, i.e. rebuilding and improving the Iraqi economy, infrastructure, etc.
The presence of Al-Qaeda is no help as they are not only violent, but they destroy the new infrastructure that would benefit the people. But, I imagine, you approve of their presence because they are Muslim, even though they are destroyers. You disapprove of the Americans regardless of their efforts to assist in the rebuilding of the country.
Sadr, a religious leader with a militia! Why would a religious leader require a militia? He is a thug and a murder contractor, sending out people to kill others.
to quote bush these people are NOT followers of a great religion
the reason fallujah and najaf have not been completely pulverized by the military is because the iraqi governing council and other iraqi nationalists have requested time to try and exert some influence to resolve the situations peacefully. but as donald rumsfeld has said, these talks will not go on indefinitely. at some point, all of these crazy people are going to either get it through their heads that they have to stop fighting, or they will die.
You all know dam well that this will be turned around and pined on america. The muslims will always stick by muslims and kill and hate all non-muslims. If this is not a sign for the iraquis to see the brutallity of the muslim islamic terrorists, nothing will be.
Unfortunately, this AP story has been edited, and it no longer has the passage about the mosques blaring out calls for gunmen:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040421/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=716
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2004/04/001657print.html
However, other online newspapers still have that paragraph:
http://www.lam-online.com/news/world/story.jsp?story=513647
See:http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10540
And Reza calls our soldiers "baby killers"
Or was all of this killing today "taken out of context" too? You know, like everything a Muslim says...
Hope you're proud of your heroes, Reza merda.
christian you said that all muslims standby muslims and kill all non muslims and you said that the iraqi;s need to wake up..... well if im not mistaken most iraqi's are muslim.