Attack in town near Baghdad kills dozen

ALASTAIR MACDONALD BAGHDAD – Dozens of people were killed in an attack around a crowded market in a violent town just outside Baghdad yesterday, one of the bloodiest incidents in Iraq this year, police and government officials said.

Amid conflicting accounts, US troops, police and the mayor in Mahmudiya said gunmen stormed the area amid grenade or mortar explosions in a rare form of assault on civilians in Iraq. The hospital put the death toll at 56, with another 67 wounded.But the Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman, insisting only 42 had died, said it was the result of a double car bombing, a more common form of attack against civilians in an area dubbed the ‘triangle of death’ for the level of Sunni-Shi’ite violence.The identity of the attackers was not clear although the mayor of Mahmudiya, Muayyad Fadhil, accused gunmen of pouring out of a mainly Shi’ite suburb of the religiously mixed town south of the capital and then firing at random on shoppers in the crowded market after a mortar barrage on the same area.Fadhil, who calls himself a Shi’ite independent politician, told Reuters: “There was a mortar attack.Then gunmen came from …the eastern side of the town.They came into the market and opened fire at random on the people shopping.”Local residents also told Reuters they had heard a series of explosions later punctuated by heavy gunfire.The town, in the news lately because of a rape-murder investigation against US troops, was sealed off for a time by police roadblocks.The US military, in a statement that said 40 people were killed and 90 wounded, added: “Terrorists stormed a market near the Mohammed al-Amin mosque in Mahmudiya …Witnesses (said) there had been a large number of terrorists throwing grenades.”Iraqi and US soldiers came under fire and reported at least eight explosions, which bomb disposal experts said had been caused by grenades, the US military said.Local police commander Colonel Iyad Mohammed also said mortars hit the town before the gunmen attacked.He said 55 people were killed.No official confirmed a death toll of 70 given by Iraqiya state television.Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed criticised media reports as exaggerated and insisted that only 42 had died in two car bombs.Members of parliament from the Shi’ite Islamist faction led by militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr quit yesterday’s session, saying the incident was an ambush against a Shi’ite funeral convoy heading between the capital and a traditional cemetery at Najaf.Some accused the security forces of failing in their duty.The attack came on the anniversary of the 1968 coup that brought Saddam Hussein’s Baath party to power.Dominated by the Sunni minority, the party oppressed Shi’ites for 35 years.- Nampa-ReutersThe hospital put the death toll at 56, with another 67 wounded.But the Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman, insisting only 42 had died, said it was the result of a double car bombing, a more common form of attack against civilians in an area dubbed the ‘triangle of death’ for the level of Sunni-Shi’ite violence.The identity of the attackers was not clear although the mayor of Mahmudiya, Muayyad Fadhil, accused gunmen of pouring out of a mainly Shi’ite suburb of the religiously mixed town south of the capital and then firing at random on shoppers in the crowded market after a mortar barrage on the same area.Fadhil, who calls himself a Shi’ite independent politician, told Reuters: “There was a mortar attack.Then gunmen came from …the eastern side of the town.They came into the market and opened fire at random on the people shopping.”Local residents also told Reuters they had heard a series of explosions later punctuated by heavy gunfire.The town, in the news lately because of a rape-murder investigation against US troops, was sealed off for a time by police roadblocks.The US military, in a statement that said 40 people were killed and 90 wounded, added: “Terrorists stormed a market near the Mohammed al-Amin mosque in Mahmudiya …Witnesses (said) there had been a large number of terrorists throwing grenades.”Iraqi and US soldiers came under fire and reported at least eight explosions, which bomb disposal experts said had been caused by grenades, the US military said.Local police commander Colonel Iyad Mohammed also said mortars hit the town before the gunmen attacked.He said 55 people were killed.No official confirmed a death toll of 70 given by Iraqiya state television.Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed criticised media reports as exaggerated and insisted that only 42 had died in two car bombs.Members of parliament from the Shi’ite Islamist faction led by militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr quit yesterday’s session, saying the incident was an ambush against a Shi’ite funeral convoy heading between the capital and a traditional cemetery at Najaf.Some accused the security forces of failing in their duty.The attack came on the anniversary of the 1968 coup that brought Saddam Hussein’s Baath party to power.Dominated by the Sunni minority, the party oppressed Shi’ites for 35 years.- Nampa-Reuters