posted on March 12, 2006 03:39:48 PM new
Attack on Baghdad Shiite Slum Kills 44
Sunday, March 12, 2006 4:27 PM EST
The Associated Press
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS and STEVEN R. HURST
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — The feared resumption of mass sectarian violence erupted Sunday in a Baghdad Shiite slum when bombers blew apart two markets shortly before sundown, killing at least 44 people and wounding about 200.
The bloody assaults on Sadr City came only minutes after Iraqi political leaders said the new parliament will convene Thursday, three days earlier than planned, as the U.S. ambassador pushed to break a stalemate over naming a unity government.
The attackers struck with car bombs, including a suicide driver, and mortars at the peak shopping time, destroying dozens of market stalls and vehicles as the explosives ripped through the poor neighborhood as residents were buying food for their evening meals.
The neighborhood was quickly sealed off by Mahdi Army militiamen of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr amid pandemonium as residents searched wildly for survivors and put charred corpses into ambulances and trucks to be taken away.
Smoke billowed into the evening sky and angry young men kicked the decapitated head of the suicide attacker, who appeared to be an African, that lay in the street at a shop door. MORE TO THIS STORY HERE http://adelphia.net/news/
THERE IS NOW A CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ THE ONLY QUESTION IS WILL IT GET WORSE??
