By Amit R. Paley and Salih Dehema Washington Post Posted on Sun, Sep. 24, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A fiery explosion tore through a line of people waiting to buy fuel Saturday and killed at least 38 people, mainly women and children, continuing the wave of tit-for-tat sectarian killings that have defied U.S. efforts to stanch the bloodshed.
The horrific blast sent women engulfed in flames screaming through the streets. Two preteen girls embraced each other as they burned to death, witnesses said. Later, wailing mourners thronged the scene of the blast, which was strewn with the shoes of victims and a woman's bloodied cloak, and voiced doubt that the reprisal violence would ever end.
``We carry our death certificates with us now, waiting only to fill in the date of death,'' said Bayan Jasem al-Kaaby, 40, a minibus driver, after he was burned by the explosion that rocked the Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City at about 10 a.m.
A Sunni Arab insurgent group, Jamaat Jund al-Sahaaba, asserted responsibility for the bombing. The group said in an Internet statement that the attack was retribution for assaults on Sunnis in Al-Hurriyah district of Baghdad, where police said two mosques were attacked and five people killed Friday.
``We tell the malicious Shia that our swords are able to reach the depths of your areas, so stop the killing'' of the Sunni people, the statement said, according to a translation by the SITE Institute.
It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion. Jamaat Jund al-Sahaaba asserted it had detonated a booby-trapped car, but witnesses said they saw a female suicide bomber, wearing a black veil that left only her eyes exposed, blow up as she tried to cut into the line of women waiting for kerosene. The bomber pushed a cart carrying a metal barrel filled with ball bearings, witnesses said.
An Interior Ministry official, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Salman, said at least 31 people had been wounded.
By midafternoon, the street where the explosion took place was still littered with abandoned yellow, red and blue jerrycans. Bits of flesh flecked the muddy ground, and blood pooled in front of Um Ali's home, left by a woman who clutched her infant child as she bled from a wound in her neck.
``She mumbled some words incoherently,'' said Um Ali, 40. ``Then she fell at my doorstep and died.''
Local residents blamed the blast on Sunnis. ``This is the work of the infidels who want to kill the Shiites with the help of the American forces and even this government,'' said a Shiite militiaman who identified himself as Sheik Mohammed.
Violence also flared elsewhere across Iraq on Saturday. At about 5:30 p.m. in Beiji, north of Baghdad, six hooded men stepped out of their cars in the middle of the city, removed two large boxes from their trunks and then left the cartons behind, according to police 1st Lt. Mustafa Thabit.
The contents: 10 human heads.
Thabit said the victims appeared to have been either employees or contractors at the U.S. military base in Beiji. ``This is the destiny of the traitors,'' read a note left in each box.
The U.S. military on Saturday announced the deaths of three soldiers. Two soldiers, both assigned to Task Force Lightning, were killed when a bomb exploded while they were on patrol near Kirkuk. Another was killed after his vehicle was struck by a bomb in northern Baghdad.
In addition, a State Department contractor was killed Friday by a rocket attack in Basra, the U.S. Embassy said. No details were released.
Al-Qaida in Iraq put a previously released video on the Internet showing what it said was the group's new leader killing a Turkish hostage two years ago. The statement identifying the masked killer as Abu Ayyub al-Masri couldn't be independently confirmed.
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