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Blasts Kill Scores Across Iraq
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Rescuers were still pulling bodies out of the collapsed mosque. (Reuters)
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BAGHDAD,
November 18, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Over 80
Iraqis were killed and some 130 other were wounded in blasts across
the war-ravaged country Friday, November 18, drawing a more bleak
picture for the country's future.
At
least 75 people were killed and 90 wounded when two bombers blew
themselves up among the worshippers at two Shiite mosques in Khanaqin,
near the Iranian border, a top Iraqi official told Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The
toll could climb further as more bodies were believed trapped under
the rubble at one mosque where the roof collapsed, Diyalah provincial
council leader Ibrahim Hasan al-Bajalan told AFP.
"The
explosions came within four minutes of one another," he said,
adding that the suicide bombers, who wore explosive belts, had joined
the faithful for Friday prayers and were sitting in their midst at the
time of the blasts.
The
search for bodies was called off at nightfall, but was to resume
Saturday, he added.
The
entrance to the mosques was not guarded as local people did not
believe they were at risk, he said.
Ibrahim
Ahmed Bajalan, a member of the Diyala provincial council told Reuters,
"I think there are more than 100 people dead".
Authorities
have imposed a curfew in the majority Shiite Kurdish town near the
Iranian border, some 170 kilometers (110 miles) from Baghdad.
Abuse-linked
Bombings
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Sunnis calling for Iraqi Interior Minister resignation over the abuse of Sunni detainees. (Reuters)
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Earlier
Friday, at least six people were killed, including a woman and two
children, and 40 were hurt when two bombers blew up their cars Friday
outside a Baghdad hotel and near an interior ministry complex.
The
explosions, at about 8:20 am (0520 GMT), brought down the facade of a
three-storey residential building, and sent slabs of concrete flying,
wounding many people as they slept in on this Muslim holy day.
The
attack took place in southern Baghdad's Jadriyah district outside the
Hamra hotel, one of several housing foreign journalists.
Firemen
and soldiers, assisted by local people, scrambled through the rubble,
searching for survivors. A crater in the street quickly filled with
water from ruptured pipes.
It
was not immediately clear what the target was, but the Hamra is a few
hundred yards (meters) from the secret Interior Ministry bunker raided
on Sunday by US forces who found 170 prisoners, mostly Sunni Arabs,
some of whom had apparently been beaten, starved and tortured, Reuters
said.
The
discovery has infuriated Sunni Iraqis, who accused the Shiite-led
government of condoning and sanctions attacks on Sunnis and called for
international inquiry into the abuses.
The
US occupation authorities, however, rejected the Sunni demands.
But
the United Nations Friday backed the Sunni calls.
UN
human rights chief Louise Arbour welcomed the Iraqi governments
intention of probing the abuses, but insisted that did not go far
enough.
"In
announcing a probe into conditions of detention, the government has
acknowledged the problem," said Arbour, the UN high commissioner
for human rights.
"But
in light of the apparently systemic nature and magnitude of that
problem, and the importance of public confidence in any inquiry, I
urge the authorities to consider calling for an international
inquiry," she said in a statement, according to AFP.
"An
international element would help the authorities address the problems
in the system of detention in an impartial and objective way.
"Such
effective action to address these and other issues is key to fostering
an environment of respect for human rights and, ultimately, to
achieving national reconciliation," she added.
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