4 female bombers kill 57
BAGHDAD (AP) - July 28, 2008 The U.S. military is recruiting and training women in Iraq's
police force, and trying to enlist them to join U.S.-allied Sunni
groups fighting against al-Qaida in Iraq. But such attacks are
becoming increasingly common, even as overall violence is at the
lowest level in four years.
Women are more easily able to hide explosives under their
all-encompassing black Islamic robes, or abayas, and often are not
searched at checkpoints because of sensitivities.
On Monday, three women blew up their explosive vests in the
middle of pilgrims in Baghdad moments after a roadside bomb attack,
killing at least 32 people and wounding 102, Iraqi officials said.
In the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, 25 people were killed
and 185 wounded when a blast tore through a crowd of Kurds
protesting a draft provincial elections law, officials said.
Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Burhan Tayeb Taha said the Kirkuk
bomber was also a woman, and that he had seen her remains at the
site. The U.S. military confirmed a suicide bombing but said it had
no indication the attacker was a woman.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. David
Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, condemned the attacks.
"The targets of these vicious and cowardly attacks were
innocent Iraqi men, women, and children who were freely practicing
their democratic rights and religious faith," their joint
statement said. "It is crucial that the Iraqi people remain united
and steadfast in the face of those terrorists who would use
violence to destroy a free Iraq and set back the progress for which
so many have so bravely sacrificed."
Authorities clamped a 3 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew on Kirkuk, which
is home to Kurds, Turkomen, Arabs and smaller groups. In Baghdad,
the Iraqi military command imposed a citywide vehicle and
motorcycle ban from 5 a.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m. Wednesday.
Iraqi security forces deployed about 200 women this week to
search female pilgrims during a procession toward the northern
Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah, where an 8th century Shiite
saint is buried.
The pilgrims are marking the death of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a
Shiite saint interred under a golden domed shrine. Monday's attacks
took place in the mainly Shiite Karradah district, which is several
miles away from the destination of the pilgrimage in Kazimiyah.
Most of the dead were women and children, police and health
officials said.
"I heard women and children crying and shouting, and I saw
burned women and dead bodies lying in pools of blood on the
street," Mustapha Abdullah, a 32-year-old man who was injured in
the stomach and legs, said from the hospital where he was being
treated.
It was the deadliest attack in Baghdad in more than a month. On
June 17, a truck bombing killed 63 people in Hurriyah, a
neighborhood that saw some of the worst Shiite-Sunni slaughter in
2006.
In Kirkuk, the suicide bomber targeted Kurdish demonstrators who
were protesting a provincial elections measure blocked in
parliament because of disagreement over power sharing.
Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir, a Kirkuk police spokesman, said police
also found a car bomb nearby and detonated it safely.
After the explosion, dozens of angry Kurds opened fire on the
offices of a Turkomen political party, which opposes Kurdish claims
on Kirkuk.
A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he
was not authorized to speak to the media, said no one was hurt in
that attack and that the party offices were placed under police
protection.
Since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, Shiite
political parties have encouraged huge turnouts at religious
festivals to display the majority sect's power in Iraq. Sunni
religious extremists have often targeted the gatherings to foment
sectarian war, but that has not stopped the Shiites.
In 2005, at least 1,000 people also were killed in a bridge
stampede caused by rumors of a suicide bomber in Baghdad during the
Kazimiyah pilgrimage.
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Associated Press writers Hamid Ahmed, Saad Abdul-Kadir and
Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.