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Thursday, April 22, 2004
uicide attacks kill at least 68 people,
6 children in Iraq city of Basra Wednesday
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By Abbas Fayadh
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
I BASRA, Iraq — Suicide attackers unleashed car bombings against
piolice buildings in Iraq’s biggest Shiite city Wednesday morning, strik
ing rush-hour crowds and killing at least 68 people, including 16 chil
dren incinerated in their school buses.
The attacks wounded about 200 people and marked a revival of
yastating suicide bombings, which had not been seen during this
month’s battles between U.S. forces and homegrown guerrillas
|:ross Iraq.
Basra Gov. Wael Abdul-Latif, a member of the Iraqi Governing
uncil, blamed al-Qaida, but a U.S. counterterrorism official said it
as premature to make such judgments.
In Fallujah, the bloodiest battlefield in April, an agreement aimed at
inging peace to the city ran into trouble Wednesday. Insurgents
acked Marines, prompting fighting that killed 20 guerrillas. Marines
id most weapons turned in by residents were unusable, undermining
li Pj Icrucial attempt at disarming fighters.
“HeB About 350 miles to the south, in Basra, bombers struck at 7
fc forjust as the city’s main street market, near one of the targeted
police stations, was opening for the day. Shoppers were headed to
the stalls of vegetables and other goods, and children were passing
l on their way to school.
The attackers detonated four cars packed with missiles and TNT in
mt of three police stations — one of them next to Basra’s main street
larket — and a police academy. An hour later another car bomb went
outside the police academy in Zubair, a largely Sunni town about
ne miles from mainly Shiite Basra.
Police discovered two other car bombs before they were detonated
|id arrested three men in the vehicles, Abdul-Latif said,
frll The blast in front of the Saudia police station wrecked and charred
»to*hicles, including school buses taking kindergartners and girls ages
f)to 15 to school.
|g|I Dead children, burned beyond recognition, were pulled from the
^Breakage. One body, black as carbon but apparently an adult, was
i^Bken away in a pickup truck.
I An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies of 10 kindergart-
Bers and six older girls at Basra’s Teaching Hospital, where the morgue
l»as full and corpses were left in the halls.
Nine of the dead and 36 of the wounded were police, Abdul-
atif said.
President Bush condemned the suicide attacks in Basra and in the
udi capital, Riyadh, where a car bomb blasted national police head
quarters, killing at least four people
and wounding 148.
The U.S. counterterrorism official,
speaking on the condition of anonymi
ty, said at this point there is no evi
dence to suggest the bombings in Iraq
and Saudi Arabia are related.
Bush said it was imperative that the
United States stay the course in Iraq
and help establish a democracy there.
“The Iraqi people are looking at
Americans and saying, ‘Are we going
to cut and run again?”’ Bush told more
to M
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Today we all
have lost children
who are part of
Iraq's future which
the terrorists want
to destroy.
— Samir Shaker
Mahmoud al-Sumeidi,
Iraqi Interior Minister
Ifronghold of Fallujah and a radical Shiite militia launching a
revolt in the south. Those two fronts — plus a flare-up of insur-
, V-Bent violence around Baghdad and across the country — have
s ' ' Mretched U.S. forces in Iraq.
■ Throughout the month, U.S. coalition officials have warned that
dden terror attacks remained a threat, and security was increased
ring Shiite religious ceremonies in Karbala on April 11.
The U.S. counterterrorism official said those behind
'ednesday’s attack may include Sunni extremists attacking a
iite area, a tribal group, former regime elements or the network
belonging to al-Zarqawi.
I “It is just premature to draw any conclusions,” the official said.
U.S. officials and military commanders say foreign Islamic mili-
are among the fighters they seek to uproot from Fallujah — and
B il y have suggested al-Zarqawi could be in the city.
I But the relationship between Iraqi insurgents and foreign militants
Hs remains unclear. While Washington contends Iraq is a center of the
™ar on terror, U.S. forces have captured few foreigners among hun-
eds of Iraqi insurgents. Al-Zarqawi complained of poor cooperation
Sunni guerrillas in a letter to al-Qaida leaders that the U.S. mili-
y said it intercepted in January.
Wednesday’s attack was the bloodiest attack in Basra, a city in
q’s far south that has seen little insurgent violence. Of the roughly
wounded, 168 were in critical condition.
The blast outside the Saudia station heavily damaged its facade and
ft a crater six feet deep and nine feet wide. When British troops in
large of Basra showed up to help, angry Iraqis blocked their way,
aming the British for failing to secure the city.
Iraqi Interior Minister Samir Shaker Mahmoud al-Sumeidi said the
sra attack resembled the March 2 suicide bombings and Feb. 1
mbings in Irbil that killed 109 people.
“Today, we all have lost children who are part of Iraq’s future
[hich the terrorists want to destroy. The Iraqi government ... con-
ms its resolution on defeating this cancer which is called resist-
ce,” al-Sumeidi said.
Four British soldiers were wounded in the police academy blasts,
oof them seriously, the British Ministry of Defense said. Britain has
out 8,700 soldiers in Iraq.
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exas appeals court
verturns two
eath sentences
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A state
< >peals court overturned two
Pjjp &ath sentences Wednesday, say-
M I g one of the men is mentally
tarded and the other was con
ned on insufficient evidence.
Willie Mack Modden — who won
reprieve from the U.S. Supreme
>urt in 2002 just hours before he
is to be executed — is one of
zens of inmates who have
imed mental retardation follow-
: the high court’s ruling that
se inmates cannot be executed,
he Texas Court of Criminal
appeals also ruled that evidence
not support a jury’s finding
*1 tjjat Kenneth Vodochodsky aided
in an ambush that resulted in the
1999 deaths of two sheriff’s
deputies in Atascosa County.
Vodochodsky’s case was sent
back to trial court for considera
tion, while Modden's sentence
was reduced to life in prison for a
1984 robbery-murder in Lufkin.
Texas has executed more than a
third of the 908 people put to death
in the United States since 1976.
Atascosa County's chief deputy
and district attorney declined to
immediately comment.
Vodochodsky had said he was
merely at the scene and could not
be held responsible for the killings.
The ruling in the Modden case
comes a year after a lower court
determined he is retarded.
Modden’s attorney, Greg Wiercioch
of the Texas Defender Service, said
he was relieved by the ruling.
Series of explosions hit Basra
S uicide attackers detonated nearly simultaneous car bombs
against police buildings in British-controlled Basra during rush
hour Wednesday. The attacks killed at least 68 people, including
16 children and wounded about 200.
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Zubair
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TURKEY
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Basra
Four
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