Worst attack in months devastates Iraqi market
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-07-18 05:30

MUSAYYIB, Iraq: Stricken townspeople swept away the wreckage of a fuel truck bomb that killed 98 people south of Baghdad as three more suicide car bombers struck the Iraqi capital yesterday in a relentless new campaign.

The overnight attack which devastated the highway town of Musayyib was the deadliest since the new Iraqi Government took power in April and the highest death toll from a single car bomb since 125 people were killed in February in Hilla, also south of Baghdad.

Saturday's bombing prompted denunciations of the authorities in parliament and calls for local militia to take up arms.

Some 15 suicide bombers have struck within just over 48 hours in the capital and along the highway heading south in what al-Qaida's Iraq wing has declared is a new campaign to seize control of Baghdad.

By far the worst incident was the blast near a Shi'ite mosque that caused devastation in the mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town, in the centre of a violent area dubbed by US forces the "triangle of death."

A suicide bomber blew up a fuel truck near a crowded vegetable market outside the mosque. In addition to the 98 killed, hospital sources said 75 wounded were being treated, including 19 in a serious condition.

"This is a black day in the history of the town," said Musayyib police chief Yas Khudayr.

"After the bomb I went over there and found my son's head. I could not find his body," said Mohsen Jassim of his 18-year-old son.

Al-Qaida in Iraq, which has urged hundreds of suicide bombers from across the Arab world to come to Iraq to wage holy war, has claimed responsibility for the latest bombing campaign and said more violence would follow, although it did not explicitly claim the Musayyib attack.

(China Daily 07/18/2005 page1)

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