Attack shatters rare Baghdad lull
BAGHDAD, Iraq – After a brief respite from carnage, the city’s skyline on Sunday once again featured a robust, gray cloud billowing slowly from a devastated commercial area that had been bombed many times before.
Two car bombs, placed a few blocks apart in the New Baghdad neighborhood, exploded in quick succession at 3:30 p.m. An Iraqi official put the preliminary death toll at 40. Other officials quoted by Iraqi television and news services said at least 60 people were killed and more than 100 injured.
“It was complete devastation,” said Abu Noor, 40, a calligrapher who was in his third-story apartment when he heard the blasts. “You could see people melting in their cars.”
Some residents wondered whether the latest bombings were insurgents’ response to reports from Iraqi officials that a newly launched security plan had taken a foothold in this battered city.
“Those people might be challenging the security plan,” said Faris Salman, 30, a mechanic who works at one of the many spare-parts shops in the targeted area. “They are showing that they have the strength, that they are able to target innocent and poor people. As long as you say we are successful with the security plan, we are also showing we are successful in killing innocent people.”
The violence continued early today, police said. A bomb exploded in a bus near a square in central Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 11. In Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of the capital, a car bomb went off among auto repair shops, killing two and wounding two.
The bombing Sunday was the most lethal attack in the country since the security plan was officially launched Wednesday, and it came as thousands of troops, including many American soldiers, are being deployed to inner-city security stations. The plan, designed by Iraqi officials, steps up patrols in neighborhoods, cracks down on unlawfully possessed weapons and tightens security along Iraq’s borders.
The first bomb exploded across the street from the Baiydhaa theater, a once-popular cinema where projectors have not been turned on for months.
The second bomb exploded about 100 yards away in a narrow street dotted with appliance stores that caught fire. Abbas Hadi, 42, a travel agent, was in a minibus on his way home from work when he felt “the earth shaking” under his seat. “It was raining things and metal parts,” he said.
U.S. soldiers stationed at a nearby police station rushed to the sites, where buildings and vehicles were ablaze.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the attack.
Al-Maliki and other Iraqi officials had spoken enthusiastically about the lull in violence after the launch of the security plan. In a news conference Saturday, a spokesman for the commander of the plan said attacks had dropped by 80 percent since the security measures kicked in.
On Sunday, Iraqi officials took reporters on a tour to see what they described as successful efforts to return people who had fled their homes to newly secured neighborhoods.
The U.S. military announced in a statement that two American soldiers were slain in separate attacks Saturday.