Three Car Bombs Kill Up to 43 People in Baghdad
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BAGHDAD, Iraq – Three car bombs exploded yesterday near a crowded bus station and a nearby hospital where survivors were being taken, killing up to 43 people in the deadliest suicide attack in Baghdad in weeks. Rescuers used bolt cutters to free some victims hurled into barbed wire fences by the blast.
The attacks may have been timed to coincide with talks on Iraq’s constitution, which resumed yesterday after leaders failed to meet a deadline two days ago. Iraq’s main Sunni Arab party denounced the deliberations, raising doubts the document can win Sunni support and lure disaffected Sunni Arabs from the insurgency.
Police said the first bomb blew up at the Nadha bus terminal, the city’s largest, shortly before 8 a.m. as swarms of travelers were boarding buses. As Iraqi police rushed to the scene, a suicide driver detonated his vehicle in the station’s parking lot.
Another suicide bomber blew up his car a half hour later across the street from nearby Kindi Hospital, to which ambulances were transporting the injured.
Police Captain Nabil Abdul-Qader said 43 people were killed and 85 were wounded in the attacks. The American military put the casualty toll at 38 dead and 68 injured. Four suspects were detained at the bus station on suspicion of involvement in the bombings, the Transportation Ministry said.
The latest attacks occurred shortly before the leaders of Iraq’s political factions met to try to finish the constitution by the new deadline next Monday. If no agreement can be reached this time, the interim constitution requires that the parliament be dissolved and that a new transitional assembly and government be elected in December.
Some Shiite officials spoke of progress in yesterday’s talks.
However, the largest Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, issued a blistering attack on the drafting committee, accusing it of bias and incompetence. The party, which has members on the committee, said major differences remain on the same issues that blocked a deal last week.
They included federalism, the role of the Shiite clergy and the distribution of Iraq’s vast oil wealth. The Sunni party also insisted that the new constitution affirm the country’s Arab and Islamic identity and demanded that Islam be declared a main source in legislation – a measure opposed by Kurds and women’s activists.
“The battle of the constitution is not over yet,” the Sunni party said. “Our people should be awake and cautious and the popular will should arise to put pressure for a free Iraqi national draft constitution that preserves the sovereignty and unity of its people.”
That raises serious questions whether the new constitution, if it can be completed in time, will achieve an American objective of luring disaffected Sunni Arabs away from the Sunni dominated insurgency.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, dismissed reports that the administration has lowered its expectations about what can be achieved in Iraq.
“I don’t think expectations have been lowered,” General Myers said in Baghdad during an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, with American troops standing behind him. “Our plans are on track.”
In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said he had been informed by the American Embassy in Baghdad that drafters of a constitution “did make some progress” yesterday but that “the issues have not been all completely settled.”
Yesterday, the American military said two more American soldiers were killed this week. One died Tuesday when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol in southwest Baghdad and another on Monday in an insurgent attack in northern Iraq.
Elsewhere, six new Iraqi soldier recruits heading to a training camp in Kirkuk were killed after gunmen stopped their minibus, Iraqi Army Brigadier General Anwar Mohammed Amin said. Three people, including two children, were killed yesterday when a car bomb exploded in Fallujah, hospital officials said.
The American military said it is investigating a clash Tuesday in Baghdad during which an undetermined number of Iraqi civilians were injured after insurgents opened fire on an American patrol and an American helicopter fired back. Iraqi police said one civilian was killed and 23 wounded.