"Iraq Bomber Aimed at Alcohol Sellers" by STEPHEN FARRELL
BAGHDAD — Blood and ouzo mingled on the sidewalk outside a shattered Baghdad liquor store on Thursday after three people were killed in a car bombing directed at alcohol sellers in one of Baghdad’s most heavily protected areas.
The alcohol sellers, who have expanded their business as security in Baghdad has improved in recent months, were among the few merchants plying their trade during the Muslim holiday celebrating Id al-Adha, the end of the hajj, or annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
I'm already smelling a WESTERN BLACK-OP, folks!
But the scattered shrapnel and body parts along Sadoun Street did not appear to have much of an impact on Id al-Adha revelers in the neighborhood, who continued as though it were a normal day, perhaps inured to the sounds and sights of violence for years.
A man who gave his name only as Mr. Ahmed, gesturing to the heavens:
“There are explosions everywhere. We believe in God.”
Even as the bomb sent a cloud of black smoke rising into the midafternoon sky, Iraqis kept partying at a social club in Paradise Square a few hundred yards away. Children ran around the lawn while their parents sat at tables listening to the sound system blaring the song “I Want to Know What Love Is.”
Iraqis COULD BE US, folks!
The wreckage came to rest alongside 10-foot-high concrete blast walls that had been brightly painted with tranquil scenes of camels and marshland waterways as part of an American-financed beautification effort.
Residents said the bomber parked his car outside one of the two dozen liquor stores in the area and walked away before setting it off, apparently using a timer or remote control. A passing Chevrolet Suburban took the full impact, and its passengers were likely to be among the three dead or the 27 people wounded, according to the Iraqi police.
An Iraqi policeman: “There’s nothing left to be targeted here, only poor people who buy alcohol and the unfortunate family in the Suburban. They were only passing by and got caught up in a tragedy on Id al-Adha, which is supposed to be a happy day.”
It was unclear which of the factions fighting bitterly in Iraq might have been responsible. Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents are united in their disapproval of alcohol.
I've got a clue as to WHO it is!!!!
Salvador Option
Special Police Commandos
Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group
Prop 201 tutorial
FRU
And that's just for starters!
But the owners of neighboring stores showed a remarkable resilience, shrugging off the idea that the liquor shops attracted the bomber. Some merchants appear to be so tolerant because the alcohol trade increases demand for their own nuts, chips, chickpeas and other snacks.
Beside the gutted sedan that carried the bomb, bloodstained sandals lay next to cartons of Carlsberg Lager, Absolut Vodka and cheap whiskey brands bearing Scottish names but originating in northern India.
Along the street, storefronts still bear the fading signs of travel agents, restaurants and computer outlets from the era of Saddam Hussein. But most are now closed and have been replaced by liquor stores, a fate shared by the nearby cinema whose front lobby has been divided up into low-rent stalls selling alcohol.
Yup, that's AMERIKA'S LIBERATION -- the freedom to GET DRUNK!!!!!
So Baghdad is now ONE BIG AMERIKAN INNER CITY, huh?
Nice "LIBERATION," Bush?
Most of these businesses, residents say, are run by enterprising Yazidis, members of a Kurdish-speaking sect. Iraq’s Yazidis live mainly in the northwest, and their faith combines elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and includes a Peacock Angel.
Residents say the Yazidis capitalized on the past few months of relative stability to take over the liquor stores in this area. Christians once dominated the trade locally but fled to escape death threats and kidnappings by religious militants.
Mustafa Hassan, 19, a grocery stall owner, said the blast walls and checkpoints installed in the neighborhood to protect American contractors and the nearby Palestine Hotel had fostered the mushrooming alcohol sector. He said that over the past year the number of liquor stores had increased to 30 from 5."
Oh, as an American I'm SO PROUD of what we have done to Iraq!
Brought them the joys of BOOZE!
And there is MORE:
"Bomber Hits a Gathering of Civilians and G.I.’s" by PAUL von ZIELBAUER
BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed vest amid a group of civilians and American soldiers northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, killing several people.
The Iraqi police said that 14 people, including one of the Americans, were killed as the soldiers were giving holiday gifts to residents in Kinaan, in the continually violent Diyala Province. But an American military spokesman said only five people had been killed, and he denied that soldiers were handing out gifts for the Id al-Adha holiday.
The attack also wounded 18 civilians and about 10 American soldiers, Iraqi police and American military officials said.
Also in Diyala Province, Iraqi forces, backed by American military units, attacked pockets of insurgents linked to the Iraq-based group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
You mean THIS "Al-CIA-Duh?
Also see: "Al-CIA-Duhs" Catch-and-Release Program
Seventeen militants were killed, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Kareem al-Rubai of the Iraqi Army, who led the operation late Wednesday. Iraqi police forces also fought insurgents linked to the group in regions north of the provincial capital, Baquba, General Rubai said, killing four.
Late Thursday in Baquba, insurgent gunfire and a homemade bomb killed an Iraqi policeman, an Iraqi soldier and two members of a Sunni Arab group cooperating with the American and Iraqi military, an Iraqi police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to a reporter.
In Anbar Province, west of Baghdad, dozens of Sunni Arabs demonstrated in Ramadi against the killing of an 18-year-old Iraqi police officer in a knife fight with an American marine on Monday.
Shouting slogans demanding revenge and “Down U.S.A.,” protesters demanded that the marine, who was not seriously wounded and whom American military officials have not identified, be charged with the officer’s killing. American naval criminal investigators are conducting an inquiry, said a Marine spokesman, Maj. Jeff Pool.
Sheik Ali al-Sarheed of the Albu Sha’ban tribe, one of the organizing protesters, said the officer’s family did not want apologies or the $1,500 compensation payment that he said the Marines had offered for the death:
“We want those soldiers to be brought to trial. Fifteen hundred dollars as compensation? This is an insult to us as tribal leaders, because in Islam, the blood money of a man is 100 camels, and what the Americans are giving is nothing compared to it.”
My ratio:
Amurkn life = worthless
Iraqi life = precious and priceless
And I THOUGHT IRAQ was GETTING BETTER?
These women know the feeling, no doubt!
"by Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writer | December 20, 2007
BAGHDAD --A suicide bombing northeast of the capital and a car bombing in Baghdad on Thursday shattered the calm of an otherwise unusually peaceful holiday period in Iraq. Authorities said 19 people were killed in the two attacks, including a U.S. soldier.
The suicide bomber struck in Kanaan, a Shiite-dominated town near the city of Baqouba in Diyala province, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. He detonated his explosives as a U.S. patrol was about to enter a building where a city council meeting was to be held, the U.S. military said.
The U.S. military said one soldier and five civilians were killed, and that 10 more soldiers and one Iraqi were wounded. However, local police and the hospital morgue in Baqouba said 13 people were killed at the scene. An official with the morgue, who asked not to be identified as he was not authorized to release the information, said one more person later died of his injuries, bringing the total to 14.
The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled. It was unclear how many Iraqis were wounded in the attack. The assistant police chief of Kanaan, Capt. Waleed Mitieb al-Karkhi, said they included three children and two women.
In Baghdad, a car bombing killed four people and wounded another nine outside a store selling liquor in the center of the city, police said. Much of the day's violence was centered in Diyala province, where turbulence has been slower to subside than in other parts of Iraq. There are areas of Diyala that the U.S. military has never controlled.
The top U.S. commander in northern Iraq -- whose area includes Diyala -- has warned that al-Qaida in Iraq is still capable of staging spectacular attacks.
Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling: "There are still some very bad things happening in that province, but we are continuing to pursue al-Qaida so they don't find a safe haven anywhere."
We aren't withdrawing and we aren't leaving.
