Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Occupation Iraq: Funeral Bombing

When will the AmeriKamn MSM begin to pronounce the surge as the failure it is, readers?

I'm not holding my breath.

"30 Dead in Baghdad’s Worst Attack in Months" by RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and QAIS MIZHER

BAGHDAD — Thirty people were killed Tuesday when a suicide bomber strode into a gathering of mourners at a home in eastern Baghdad and detonated an explosives-packed vest, the Interior Ministry said. It was the most brazen and deadly attack in the capital in months.

The force of the blast scattered severed arms and legs about the site of the attack, a house where scores of friends and relatives had gathered to pay tribute to a man killed three days earlier by a car bomb in Tayaran Square in central Baghdad.

One survivor ran in the street outside screaming and crying that five of her sons had been killed. Then she collapsed, said a car salesman who works nearby.

The salesman, who gave his name as Abu Firas:

There were many children killed. You could see pieces of flesh everywhere.”

The late-afternoon blast in the Zayuna neighborhood, days after American officials gave an upbeat briefing about how civilian casualties had declined significantly, was one in a string of attacks on Tuesday that included the killing of five family members in volatile Diyala Province. The violence underscored how dangerous Iraq remained despite a drop in killings to what Iraqi authorities had said was the lowest level in two years.

All told, at least 40 people were killed across Iraq on Tuesday. The Zayuna blast was unusual not only for its heavy toll but also for its location: a neighborhood that has a large Iraqi military and police presence with many checkpoints and barriers intended to prevent attackers from entering to the area. An Iraqi military base is also near the site of the bombing, a mixed area of Shiites and Sunnis.

Readers!


An official from the Interior Ministry said at least 38 mourners were wounded in the attack, in addition to the 30 killed. A spokesman for the American military command in Baghdad, Lt. Patrick Evans of the Navy, said early reports provided to the military indicated that 25 people had been killed and 20 wounded.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a senior Iraqi security spokesman, told Reuters that he believed the attacker was a member of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia from Diyala who might have known the family of the man killed in Tayaran Square:

According to those who were present, no stranger had entered. So either he was a relative or someone well known to the family.”

Readers, I am tired of the damn lies!


The attack in Baghdad followed the gruesome abduction and killing of five relatives on Tuesday morning in Jalawla, a village northeast of Muqdadiya in Diyala Province. One of the five killed was a policeman, an Iraqi police official in Diyala said.

An Iraqi Army official in Diyala also said nine Iraqi soldiers were wounded in explosions as soldiers rushed to reinforce a checkpoint in the province that was under insurgent attack.

In the latest sign that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown insurgent group that American intelligence says is led by foreigners, is stepping up attacks against those Sunni militias called Awakening Councils, the severed head of a member of one council was found north of Muqdadiya, the police said.

Also, the police in Salahuddin Province said fighters from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia kidnapped a farmer and killed his son in Dhuluiya, and stole 200 of the farmer’s sheep.

Sheik Ahmad Hameed, a leader of the Awakening Council in Dhuluiya, said many insurgents had migrated to Dhuluiya and Samarra from nearby Diyala and had been attacking anyone they believed to be connected with the anti-extremist Sunni groups:

Qaeda fighters have been attacking Awakening members in revenge, but the people insist on defeating Al Qaeda. [But dozens of families have also fled the area recently because of the growing threat from the insurgents]."

Gunmen killed three people in a village 40 miles south of Kirkuk, a police official there said.

The Ministry of Interior reported that 246 civilians were killed in Baghdad last month, according to data provided by an official at the ministry on Tuesday. That compared with 275 killed in Baghdad in November, and 1,093 in May.

Across the country, 462 civilians were killed in December, according to icasualties.org, which tracks fatalities, down from 471 in November and 1,629 in December 2006.

Though far fewer civilian deaths have been reported in the last five months than the same period in 2006, recent civilian casualty trends track closely with late 2005, before the bombing of a Shiite shrine enveloped the country in a brutal sectarian war."

So should we expect some other black-op to again divide Iraqis?

Oh, and for the record, readers:

35 people killed every day, with the number of Iraqis killed by the surge around 300 per day, 10,000 per month -- and 1.2 million Iraqis dead since the invasion (not including the 1,654 killed in September), mainly due to the U.S. military's 75 air raids a day, and the five-fold increase in air bombings.

Also see:
Story Iraq: MSM Lied About Death Tolls

Memory Hole: 600,000 DEAD!

Also for the record:

Asymmetrical Warfare Group

Operation Gladio

Operation Northwoods

Salvador Option

Special Police Commandos


Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group

Prop 201 tutorial

FRU

"
Al-CIA-Duh"

"Al-CIA-Duhs" Catch-and-Release Program

How much evidence you need, readers?

And did
I mention the DOD's MSM press offices in Lincoln, the Pentagon and Langley?

That's where the NYT gets its stuff!

Let's try another paper, shall we?

"Suicide bomber kills 35 in Baghdad; Attack hits funeral of bombing victim" by Kimi Yoshino, Los Angeles Times | January 2, 2008

BAGHDAD - At least 35 people were killed and 37 wounded when the attacker detonated an explosives vest at a crowded Shi'ite Muslim funeral for a former military colonel in Saddam Hussein's army, police said.

The attack appeared to be timed to coincide with the last day of a three-day funeral ritual when a big meal is served. In a particularly cruel twist, mourners were grieving for the victim of a suicide bombing last week, Nabil Hussein Alwan.

Many of yesterday's victims were close members of Alwan's family.

Mohanad Saleh, who owns a travel and transport company in the capital's middle-class neighborhood of Zayouna near the blast site, described the scene as "horrifying."

Saleh, who ran to the scene after hearing the explosion:

"The funeral was burning, women screaming and crying, dead people lying on the ground, the wounded hemorrhaging and crying for help.
It's a terrible thing to happen to mourners who were already experiencing grief due to the loss of their loved one. Now they face this terrorism. It's a very agonizing thing to start the first day of the year with."

Hospital officials said the injured suffered varying degrees of burns, and many of the dead were charred.


Although overall, 2007 was the deadliest year since the war began, the steep decline in violence during the latter half of the year continued in December.

Sigh!


According to statistics released Monday by the Ministry of Health, 481 civilians died nationwide in December in war-related bombings, mortar attacks, and sectarian slayings, the lowest monthly total of the year. December also marked one of the lowest monthly totals of US military deaths since the war's start in March 2003, with 23 reported by the website icasualties.org.

At a briefing last week, General David H. Petraeus said suicide attacks using explosives vests and car bombs had inched back up in November and December.

Oooooooh
, and the whole time we were told violence was declining!

I've really had it with the lies.


At least 24 people were killed and as many as 100 injured in two suicide bombings on Christmas Day. Friday, Alwan and nine other people were killed and 66 wounded in a bombing at Tayaran Square, a busy outdoor marketplace and gathering spot in the capital.

In other violence, a bomb exploded in northern Baghdad yesterday morning, injuring four US soldiers and seven civilians, the US military said.

Two civilians were killed south of Kirkuk when they were gunned down in their cars, Iraqi Police Lieutenant Marwan Fadhil said.

In Balad, seven Iraqi police officers, including a police station chief, were killed in clashes yesterday between Iraqi security forces and gunmen, police said."

Yeah, Iraq is a whole pile better!