A suicide bomber targeting poor laborers killed 60 people in
Baghdad Tuesday hours before US President George W. Bush was to
review his unpopular Iraq policy in a video teleconference with US
military commanders in Iraq.
Interior Ministry sources said 221 people were wounded in the
blast after the bomber lured a crowd of day laborers to his vehicle
with the promise of work.
The 7 AM (04:00 GMT) attack took place in Tayaran Square, a
popular gathering point for carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers,
painters and other workers who frequent the cafes and street
vendors while waiting for the chance of some work. Many of the
workers who gather at Tayaran Square are poor Shi'ites.
"A driver with a pickup truck stopped and asked for laborers.
When they gathered around the car it exploded," said a witness, who
was helping a stumbling survivor with a blood-stained bandage
covering his head. "They were poor laborers looking for work. The
poor are supposed to be protected by the government," he said.
Calling the attack a "horrible massacre", Shi'ite Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki blamed it on Saddam Hussein sympathizers and Sunni
Islamist al-Qaida. "These terrorist groups are trying to spread
chaos by killing and fuelling sectarian strife," he said in a
statement.
The explosion, which sent a cloud of black smoke into the sky,
set many cars on fire. Gunfire sounded after the blast.
Iraq is gripped by tit-for-tat sectarian killings between
majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam but now the
backbone of the insurgency. Thousands have been killed in violence
many Iraqis fear is pitching the country toward all-out civil
war.
Americans want quick withdrawal
A new poll has shown that most Americans support a quick
withdrawal of US troops, putting Bush under strong pressure to
shift course in Iraq, where 2,931 US troops have died since the
2003 US-led invasion.
A week after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gave Bush 79
recommendations for changing direction in the unpopular Iraq War,
Bush did not appear to be warming to some of its major conclusions
as he prepared his own plan.
He was expected to hold a video teleconference later Tuesday
with US military commanders in Baghdad, then meet Iraqi
Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni. He visits the Pentagon
today.
The bipartisan report called for direct talks with Iran and
Syria and for US combat troops to be out of Iraq by early 2008, but
Bush has declined to embrace either recommendation. He has not
ruled out a regional conference to help Iraq, involving Iran and
Syria, but the White House indicated Iraq would have to set it
up.
A new USA TODAY/Gallup poll published on Monday said 55 percent
of the respondents wanted most US troops withdrawn within a year,
but only 18 percent believed that would happen.
A record high 62 percent said the war in Iraq was not "worth it,"
and a record low 16 percent said the United States was winning, USA
Today said.
Bush met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top
officials at the State Department on Monday, with an eye to
announcing a change of course to skeptical Americans next week.
Maliki, whose coalition government of Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and
Kurds has failed to curb the violence, will hold a national
reconciliation conference on Saturday, and has announced plans to
call a meeting of Iraq's neighbors.
(China Daily December 13, 2006)
