Intense violent turmoil in Iraq
continued Sunday
and Monday when attacks across Baghdad killed more than 30 people. A
busy restaurant frequented by police officers was the target
of the deadliest attack, a suicide bombing that claimed 23 lives and
wounded more than 36 others.
"There were a number of policemen outside the restaurant having tea from Alaa, the tea man. There were two tables with chairs
around them where the policemen were sitting. Then a suicide bomber came close to them and blew himself up," said a 29-year-old
witness, Qusay Kaabi, according to the Washington Post. "It was a very loud explosion, and the restaurant was filled with smoke and dust."
The New York Times
reported
that, in an aura of resignation, older men just 80 yards away resumed
curbside games of checkers even before workers finished
cleaning away chunks of flesh. "It's Iraqis who die like this, not
Americans," Muhammad Jasem, 25 and unemployed, told the Times.
"We never saw this kind of thing before they came." In the capital city
alone, more than 600 civilians have perished in attacks
over the last six weeks.
In Tikrit on Sunday, a man killed himself and
five Iraqis while targeting a U.S. military base in a car rigged with explosives. Early Monday, a suicide attacker in Ebril
detonated his vehicle in a crowd of police recruits.
Local officials confirm the blast killed 15 and wounded 100, some
severely. The city was cited just yesterday by Foreign Minister
Hoshyar Zebari as one of many
relatively stable areas of the country.
The surge in violence has occurred while U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops battle insurgents near Karabilah on the Syrian border. British and American
warplanes pounded targets to support a 1,000 Marine force.
A Marine statement also said patrols in the devastated city of Fallujah came under attack Sunday. According to the statement, 15 insurgents were killed while the attack
was repulsed.
Source: Wikinews
