70 killed in bombing reprisals
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Mortars rained down on a Sunni Baghdad neighborhood Sunday in apparent retaliation for the deadliest single bombing of the war, and the U.S. military confirmed that ground fire brought down four helicopters that have crashed since Jan. 20.
A day after an estimated 1-ton truck bomb killed at least 138 people in the Shiite market of Sadriyah in central Baghdad, tensions rose across the city and frustration built over delays in implementing the government’s promised new security plan.
More than 70 people were reported killed Sunday, including 42 whose corpses were dumped around the city and 15 killed in the mortar barrage against Adhamiyah, a Sunni neighborhood that is typically targeted in the aftermath of bombings against Shiite neighborhoods.
Stirring fresh tensions with neighboring Syria, Iraq’s government called Damascus responsible for half the terrorist attacks in Baghdad and called on Syria to hand over wanted former Baathists and halt the flow of foreign fighters across its borders.
“I confirm that 50 percent of murders and bombings are by Arab extremists coming from Syria,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. “They come from Syria; we have evidence to prove it.”
The worst single bombing yet and the unprecedented cluster of helicopter attacks highlight the challenges confronting the U.S. military and the Iraqi government as they prepare to implement the plan on which President Bush’s revised strategy for Iraq rides.
Military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell cautioned that the plan is unlikely to produce immediate results. “It is important to acknowledge that it will not turn the security situation overnight,” he said.
He said for the first time that the four helicopters that crashed between Jan. 20 and Feb. 2, killing 21 Americans, all were brought down by hostile fire. Three were military helicopters and one was contracted to Blackwater, a civilian security contractor.
Investigators still have not determined exactly how the four were brought down or whether the insurgents may have acquired new tactics, but “it does appear they were all the result of some kind of (anti-aircraft) ground fire that did bring those helicopters down,” he said.
“There’s been an ongoing effort since we’ve been here to target our helicopters,” Caldwell said. “Based on what we have seen, we’re already making adjustments in our tactics and techniques and procedures as to how we employ our helicopters.”