Deadliest day in Baghdad since 2003; U.S. report says it's 'civil war'

By: Terry85
Published On: 2/3/2007 2:28:30 PM

So much for progress. A massive truck bombing killed at least 121 and injured at least 226 in a mostly Shi-ite neighborhood of Baghdad today. It was the deadliest bombing in the capitol city since 2003. The same market was bombed in December killing 51.

According to a Reuters report:

"It was a terrible scene. Many shops and houses were destroyed," said one resident, Jassem, 42, who had rushed from his home nearby to help pull people from the rubble after hearing the ear-splitting explosion.

The bombing was believed to be a suicide bomber, since after the December blast that rocked the same neighborhood, cars were forbidden to park in the street.

The blast, which left a wide crater in the street, came hours after Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, renewed an appeal to Iraqis to avoid violence.

"The Islamic nation is passing through difficult conditions and facing tremendous challenges that threaten its future," his new fatwa, or religious edict, said.

"Everybody knows the necessity for us to stand together and reject the sectarian tension to avoid stirring sectarian differences."

Continue reading below the fold
Meanwhile, a U.S. intelligence report released yesterday said that the violence between Sunni and Shi-ite groups meets the definition of civil war - a description of Iraq that the White House has rejected for months, especially after NBC decided the network as a whole would now classify the country as having decayed into a state of civil war.

So much for PM Nuri al-Maliki's promise to crush insurgents earlier last month.

[Cross posted on Daily Kos and Capitol Talk!]


Comments



Hogwash! (Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States) (Dianne - 2/5/2007 12:23:21 PM)
All you naysayers, you unpatriotic, helping-the-enemy Democrats (oh and you traitor Republicans too).... just go away and let us fight these terrorists (aka Iraqis).  Yeah, so what if there's colateral damage... war is war...

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."  Donald Rumsfeld

"I had other priorities in the sixties than military service." -on Dick Cheney's five draft deferments, April 5, 1989

Thanks Terry85