Let's try it again - this time with the link.
Car bombs and a rocket barrage struck a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 62 people, a municipal official said. The rockets apparently were fired from a mostly Sunni district targeted by U.S. troops in a crackdown against the sectarian violence roiling the capital.
About 140 were injured in the attack on the Zafraniyah neighborhood in southern Baghdad, which began about 7:15 p.m. with two car bombs and a barrage of an estimated nine rockets, Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Saddoun Abu al-Ula said.
He said the barrage heavily damaged three buildings, including a multi-story apartment house that collapsed. Al-Ula said the rockets appeared to have been fired from the neighborhood of Dora, which has been the focus of thousands of U.S. troops sent to try to restore peace in Baghdad.
The complex style of the assault was similar to a July 27 attack of mortars, rockets and car bombs on another mostly Shiite district, Karradah, which killed 31 people. Police said the rockets and mortars that struck Karradah also were fired from Dora.
A Sunni extremist group, the al-Sahaba Soldiers, claimed responsibility for the Karradah attack to punish Shiites for supporting the "crusaders," or Americans, and the "treacherous" Iraqi government.
Earlier Sunday, the U.S. command announced that soldiers of the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division had arrested a key terrorist cell leader who was "directly linked" to the July 17 attack on an outdoor market in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
The statement said the arrest was made Thursday but did not give the suspect's name. Gunmen believed to be Sunnis opened fire on shoppers and vendors in the Mahmoudiya market during last month's attack, killing at least 51 people and wounding more than 70. Most of the victims were Shiites.
On Sunday, Health Minister Ali al-Shemari, a member of a Shiite group that operates a militia, said American soldiers arrested seven of his bodyguards in a pre-dawn raid on his office.
"There was no legal warrant, there was no prior warning to the ministry, How odd! there was no reason to arrest them. It is a provocation," said al-Shemari, a member of the movement led by radical Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, head of the biggest Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army.
However, a U.S. military statement said coalition forces received a tip from a resident that "15 criminals wearing Iraqi army uniforms" had kidnapped six people and taken them to the Ministry of Health building.
Iraqi and U.S. soldiers searched the building and did not find any kidnap victims. But five detainees were taken in for questioning "based on their positive identification by the tipster," the statement said, without elaborating.
It was not clear if the raid was linked to the June disappearance of a Sunni provincial health official, Dr. Ali al-Mahdawi, who vanished after a meeting with the minister. Just a coincidence? Sunnis claimed al-Mahdawi was kidnapped by Shiite militiamen.
Al-Shemari denied any knowledge of al-Mahdawi's disappearance and said he had interviewed him for a senior post in the ministry.
|
Iraqi security forces captured 16 "gang members" Sunday who were allegedly planning to attack, kidnap or assassinate close relatives of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, an Iraqi Council of Ministers statement said.