DOZENS KILLED IN BAGHDAD BLASTS, BUT U.S. IRAQ DISPUTE CAUSE
Qassim Abdul-Zahra

AP Worldstream
Aug 14, 2006

Residents dug through wrecked buildings Monday in a predominantly
Shiite neighborhood devastated by explosions that killed at least 47
people. Iraqis blamed bombs and rockets, but U.S. military experts
pointed to a gas explosion.

U.S. ordnance teams went to the Zafraniyah neighborhood and found
"no evidence" of anything other than a "significant gas explosion"
Sunday night followed by subsequent blasts related to a gas leak,
the U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, said.

"If in fact there had been a hole in the ground, there would be some
residue from a Katyusha rocket if one had been fired there," he told
reporters without elaborating.

Iraqi officials insisted the damage was caused by car bombs and a
rocket barrage fired from Dora, a mostly Sunni district _ evidence
that sectarian violence roiling the capital shows no sign of stopping
despite an additional 12,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops soldiers rushed
in to enforce peace.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office said in a statement that the
attack started with a number of Katyusha rockets falling on a building
followed by a car bomb, more rockets on a post office, a motorcycle
bomb near a public library and mortar rounds near an Armenian church.

The statement said 47 people were killed and 100 injured.

"The terrorists planned this ugly crime so that it would inflict
maximum harm on innocent civilians, and this is proof of their
deep-rooted hatred for Iraq and their attempt to incite sectarianism,"
al-Maliki said.

A Sunni extremist group, the al-Sahaba Soldiers, claimed responsibility
in a statement posted on the Internet Monday. It said its fighters
exploded two booby trapped cars and fired mortar shells, killing
"more than 50 malicious Shiites."

The statement warned the Shiites "to stop killing unarmed Sunnis and
stop supporting the Crusaders," a reference to Americans. "Or else,
wait for operations that will shatter your neighborhoods, God willing."

The group had also claimed responsibility for a similar attack on
July 27 on Karradah, another mostly Shiite neighborhood, which had
killed 31 people.

In Zafraniyah, huge slabs of concrete that once were ceilings in an
apartment building lay atop each other in a heap at one spot.

A middle-aged man in a bloodstained disdasha, the traditional
Arab robe, wandered aimlessly, hitting his face with his hands in
grief. Residents said his six children were crushed to death when
his house collapsed.

"This is terrorism against the whole nation," said Ali al-Sayedi,
a municipal council member.

A pedestrian bridge, ripped off its mooring, crushed a car
underneath. The roof of a house displayed a wide hole, exposing the
steel reinforcing rods bent inwards. The blackened wreckage of an
overturned car lay nearby.

The explosions Sunday night reinforced worries about the Sunni-Shiite
violence that American officials consider the greatest threat to
Iraq’s stability more than three years after the U.S.-led invasion
toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime.

On Sunday, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers began searching more than 4,000
homes in the Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah in Baghdad while conducting
a similar operation simultaneously in the Shiite district of Shula,
the U.S. command said.

Much of the violence has been blamed on Sunni insurgents and Shiite
extremists, who have been waging retaliatory attacks since the bombing
of a Shiite mosque on Feb. 22. The United Nations estimates nearly
6,000 Iraqis were killed in May and June.

Caldwell, the U.S. spokesman, said Shiite extremists here are receiving
arms, munitions and training from Iran. But he added it is not clear
if Iran’s Shiite clergy-dominated government is involved.

"We know that some Shiite elements have been in Iran receiving
training …

We do know that weapons have been provided and IED technology been
made available to these extremist elements," he said, referring to
"improvised explosive devices" _ the homemade bombs that are widely
used in the anti-U.S. insurgency and sectarian violence.

On Sunday, unidentified gunmen killed Col. Mahjoub Khalaf Ghulam,
a commander in the Iraqi oil protection force, in Tikrit, 80 miles
north of Baghdad, police said. More than 250 Oil Ministry officials,
workers and oil security personnel have been assassinated since the
fall of Saddam.

At least 10 other people were killed Monday in shootings and bombings
across Iraq, including three blacksmiths shot by gunmen in the northern
city of Mosul.