BAGHDAD, Apr 23 (IPS) - Iraqis blame the U.S. occupation for the failure
of two parallel security plans drawn up by U.S.
forces and Iraqi troops that failed dramatically with the bombings last
week that killed more
than 300 people in Baghdad.
Under the security plans additional troops were brought to Baghdad and
most city streets
closed. But car bombings, operations by death squads and attacks on U.S.
troops
continue.
The attacks Wednesday last week took a high casualty among Kurdish workers
known to
work in that area. Kurds in the north have stayed relatively free of the
violence and the
sectarian Shia-Sunni killings in the rest of the country. Kurds had
supported the U.S.-led
invasion four years back.
"A car bomb went off in Sadriyah neighbourhood in the city centre causing
death to over
200 people," Mahmood Abdulla from the Russafa Police Directorate in
Baghdad told IPS. "It
is not certain that the car was driven by a suicide person, in fact most
of us believe it was
parked there since early morning."
Sadriyah is one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Baghdad. It is an area
that brings together
different ethnic and sectarian groups.
"We do not know who is killing us, but we do know who is responsible for
our safety,"
Kaka Kadir, who lost a 15-year-old son in the attack told IPS. "All we
receive from our
government and the Americans is talk, and holding other people
accountable, while it is
them who should protect us."
"I do not believe it is al-Qaeda any more," a woman weeping near the scene
of the
bombing told IPS. "I do not care any more, I am just losing my loved ones.
The last
explosion hit my husband and now he is disabled, and this one took my
son's life."
She referred to a similar bombing two-and-a-half months ago at the same
market, which
killed 137 and wounded many more.
U.S. leaders and Iraqi government officials again accused "terrorists and
the Saddamists"
of the bombing. But many people around Baghdad are blaming the occupation
forces and
the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
"I noticed that security officers did not carry out any site
investigation," a former police
officer who lives in a neighbouring area told IPS on condition of
anonymity. "I have also
noticed that no such crime has been solved since the first days of the
occupation."
The officer said that "huge crimes like the Samarra shrine explosions (at
the al-Askari Shia
mosque in Samarra, 90km north of Baghdad in February last year) that led
to increasing
sectarian dispute, and many other crimes, remain unsolved."
The focus last week was on the Sadriyah attacks, but many others were
carried out.
One explosion was reported near a hospital in Karrada district in
southeast Baghdad the
same day. The attack seems to have targeted an Iraqi army patrol, and
killed at least 11
people, four of them soldiers.
"Karrada is supposed to be very well protected," 28-year-old Hussein
Rathman, a local
shop owner who could not reach his shop that day told IPS. "It seems there
is no hope, and
everyone should think seriously of leaving the country."
Another explosion the same day killed at least 40 people at Muzaffar
Square near Sadr City
in east Baghdad. Angry Iraqis demonstrated soon after the bombing against
the Iraqi
government and occupation forces.
"The problem is that those Americans are still talking about peace and
reconciliation in
Iraq," Jabbar Ahmed, a lawyer and human rights activist in Baghdad told
IPS. "They should
just leave the country after all the disappointment people here feel
towards them. All they
are doing is lying all the time, while Iraqi blood has become so cheap."
The killings did not end Wednesday. In attacks the following day 82 people
were killed and
another 70 injured. Three U.S. soldiers and two British troops were also
killed in
Thursday's violence.
According to the U.S. Department of Defence, at least 3,315 U.S. soldiers
have been killed
in Iraq so far.
*(Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with
Dahr Jamail, our
U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the
region) (END/2007) Source: IPS News |
Middle East 
