Vehicle blasts kill scores in Baghdad

[GraceAbounds]

Vehicle blasts kill scores in Baghdad
60 more wounded hours after separate car bomb kills 17 civilians
The Associated Press
Updated: 5:30 a.m. CT Aug 1, 2007

BAGHDAD - A fuel tanker exploded Wednesday near a gas station in western Baghdad, killing at least 50 people and wounding 60, police said.
The blast occurred around 2 p.m. in Mansour, a primarily Sunni neighborhood on the western side of the Iraqi capital.
Two police officers, both speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said the explosion was the work of a suicide attacker. No further information on the attack was immediately available.
Earlier Wednesday, 17 civilians were killed in a car bomb in central Baghdad and the U.S. military announced the deaths of three American soldiers killed by a sophisticated, armor-piercing bomb.
The latest attacks came as Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government, undermining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s efforts to seek reconciliation among the country’s rival factions.
Sunni ministers resign
Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Accordance Front, said at a news conference in the capital that the bloc’s six Cabinet ministers would submit their resignations later in the day.
Al-Issawi said the decision to pull out from the government followed what he called al-Maliki’s failure to respond to a set of demands put forward by the Accordance Front last week, when it gave the prime minister seven days to meet its demands.
Among the demands: a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias and the participation of all groups represented in the government in dealing with security issues.
“The government is continuing with its arrogance, refusing to change its stand and has slammed shut the door to any meaningful reform,” al-Issawi said. “We had hoped that the government would respond to these demands or acknowledge its failures. But its stand did not surprise us at all.”
The Accordance Front has 44 of parliament’s 275 seats. Its withdrawal from the 14-month-old government is the second such action by a faction of al-Maliki’s “national unity” coalition.
Five Cabinet ministers loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr quit the government in April to protest al-Maliki’s reluctance to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Blast leaves gaping crater
Meanwhile, a parked car bomb killed 17 civilians and left a gaping crater in a busy square in central Baghdad, police said. Another 32 people were wounded by the blast, a police officer said on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the explosion ripped a hole more than 3 feet deep and nearly 5 feet wide in the asphalt. Three minibuses and six cars were damaged by flames and flying debris. Blood pooled in the street.
A gas station and a nearby restaurant, which was closed at the time of the blast, also suffered damage.
The explosives had been planted in a vehicle in al-Hurriyah square in the mostly Shiite Karradah neighborhood, and detonated around 10:15 a.m., the police officer said.
Thamir Sami, 33, was carrying clothes from his menswear shop out to his car when the explosion shook the area.
“Women and children were lining up near the gas station to get fuel ... I saw burnt bodies. Other motorists and I helped evacuate the wounded before the ambulances came,” he said.
The bombing occurred nearly a week after a cluster of explosions, including one from a massive truck bomb, hit the same neighborhood. Karradah had previously been thought to be one of central Baghdad’s safest areas. Last Thursday’s blasts killed more than 60 people.
July death toll at 8-month low
The U.S. military on Wednesday announced the deaths of three more soldiers, killed by a sophisticated, armor-piercing bomb in eastern Baghdad.
An explosively-formed penetrator, or EFP, detonated near the soldiers’ patrol during combat operations on Tuesday, the military said.
Six other soldiers were wounded. The victims’ names were withheld pending family notification.
That brought to 76 the July toll of U.S. deaths in Iraq. It was the lowest monthly count in eight months, as the U.S. military said it was gaining control of former militant strongholds.
Still, it was the deadliest July for U.S. troops since the war began. For the previous three years, the month of July saw a relatively low death toll. In July 2006, 43 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq, and 54 died in each of the previous two Julys.
By contrast, July was the second-deadliest month for Iraqis so far this year, according to an Associated Press tally.

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