ICTJ in the News

February 12, 2007

Market Attacks in Baghdad Kill at Least 67

New York Times

By Damien Cave

BAGHDAD, Feb. 12 - Four back-to-back explosions at two markets in central Baghdad killed at least 67 people and wounded 155 today, charring drivers in their cars, shredding stores and setting ablaze a seven-story building full of clothing stores that burned for more than six hours, witnesses and officials said.

The blasts - three at Shorja market, the capital's largest bazaar, and one at Bab al-Sharji market a few blocks away - struck shortly after Iraq's Shiite-led government marked the first anniversary, by the Islamic calendar, of an attack that destroyed a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra. That bombing, which shattered the shrine's golden dome, ignited a wave of sectarian violence in Iraq that has yet to be extinguished.

With its timing and severity, today's attack seemed intended to both fuel the country's sectarian hatreds and upstage the new American-Iraqi security plan for Baghdad.

One thunderous explosion could be heard in the middle of an upbeat outdoor news conference by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal Al-Maliki in the Green Zone, roughly two miles from the market. Mr. Maliki did not flinch at the sound of the blast or interrupt his remarks. ("I'm very hopeful that the Iraqis will work together to support the Iraqi security forces and police" - boom! - "who are in charge of the operation," he said.)

Still, the bombing only underscored the challenge Mr. Maliki faces in trying to inspire public confidence as sectarian violence continues.

The attack at Shorja market was at least the fifth bombing there since August. It was one of more than a dozen strikes at markets over the past year, which have killed a total of more than 500 people. And it came on a day when the Iraqi High Tribunal ruled that Saddam Hussein's vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, should follow his former boss to the gallows, despite objections from American officials and Western observers, who feared that another rapid hanging would further undermine the credibility of Mr. Maliki's government.

The court initially sentenced Mr. Ramadan to life in prison for his role in the killing of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail in the 1980s, and the Iraqi judges who switched his punishment to death "didn't give any legal reasons for their change of action," said Miranda Sissons, leader of the Iraq program at the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York. She said no new evidence had emerged since Mr. Ramadan's November conviction.

"The court is no longer making a judicial decision," she said. "It's political."

There were calls for peace today, too - most notably from Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - but they were largely drowned out by fury and cries for vengeance.

After he was sentenced to death, Mr. Ramadan said he was innocent and promised that God "will take revenge on everyone who oppressed me."

At Shorja market, where a roadside bomb, a car bomb and a truck bomb blew up just after noon local time, people directed their anger at Sunni insurgents who they believed were responsible for the attack.

Ali Hassan Flayha, a merchant from the market who witnessed the explosions, said the insurgents wanted only destruction, to stop daily life, kill as many people as possible and keep the public angry at the Iraqi and American governments.

"The insurgents won't let us do our work," he said. "They are shooting at us, kidnapping our workers, starting fires just to keep us a way from the market - and they're using car bombs all the time."

He said he could recall at least seven bomb attacks at the market since 2003. Bloodied bodies have become a familiar sight. Checkpoints and government protection have not.

"The goal of the insurgents is to show us that the government is weak," he said. "We understand - they're right."

Mr. Flayha and other witnesses said that one of the bombs today was concealed in a pickup truck that parked outside the Abu Hanifa building, a seven-story concrete structure with shops and restaurants on the first floor, and clothing wholesale businesses filling the rest of the building.

The explosion, witnesses said, set the building on fire, trapping workers amid mannequins and clothing that burned like kindling and belched out smoke. Fire trucks arrived but were unable to put out the blaze for hours, leading some to question whether they had enough water.

In the streets, bodies sat in cars, blackened. Young men pushed wooden carts with wounded survivors, their heads and bodies bandaged.

At one point, about four hours after the explosions, Methal al-Alussi, a Sunni Arab member of Parliament, visited the scene. Merchants told him "you have to do something to help us."

"We will try to figure it out," said Mr. Alussi, who arrived encircled with more than 20 armed guards.

Meanwhile, in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, which American and Iraqi troops initially labeled a success after clearing houses this summer, two people were killed in a drive-by shooting, an Interior Ministry official said. Three people were killed by mortar rounds in western Baghdad and the authorities found 28 bodies throughout the city.

In Diyala Province, where American and Iraqi troops have been fighting Sunni insurgents for control, gunmen publicly beheaded seven people, the police said. One group of suspected insurgents shot six people in the head in a public garden in one of Baquba's northern neighborhoods. A few miles further north, another group of insurgents beheaded a policeman with a sword in a public square where children usually played soccer.

In both cases, the police said, the gunmen forced residents from their homes and made them gather to watch the killings.

Reporting was contributed by Qais Mizher, Ali Adeeb and Abdul Razzaq Al-Saiedi.