Hydrablog

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/29/AR2006102900145.html
Baghdad Blast Kills 26; U.S. Oct. Toll Hits 101
Twofold Operation Seals Sadr City
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 30, 2006; 4:00 PM [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 (dec 2005 elections; Feb 22, 2006 attack on famous shii’a mosque; april 22 elevation of current PM Maliki)] [bush administration finally had begun talking about “benchmarks”] [meanwhile, the death toll keeps growing] [************] [ditto]
BAGHDAD, Oct. 30 -- A bustling market in Baghdad's Sadr City became the capital's latest killing ground early Monday when a bomb hidden amid trash and clutter exploded in a fiery inferno, killing at least 26 people and wounding 60, a spokesman at Iraq's Interior Ministry said.
The explosion occurred at about 7 a.m. at the busy Circle 55 intersection, a popular gathering point in the Shiite slum for construction laborers looking for a day's work. The blast spewed shards of metal, exploded three nearby cars and left a huge crater in the pavement.
U.S. and Iraqi forces had previously established a cordon around the teeming slum, which is controlled by the Mahdi Army militia, in an attempt to find a kidnapped U.S. soldier and a man known as Abu Diraa, who is considered Iraq's most notorious death squad leader.
Shiite leaders pointed to that U.S. operation Monday to accuse the Americans of complicity in the market blast, saying that because they were in charge of searching all vehicles going in and out of the area, they must have allowed in the bomb that was detonated at the market.
"The entrances and exits in and out of Sadr City are still under the control of the Iraqi and occupation forces," said Mohammed Al-Ka'abi, a spokesman for Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army and head of a strong political bloc in Iraq's government. "Since the entrances to the city are in the hands of the Americans, they let it in and slaughtered the people."
Some residents of Sadr City, home to 2.5 million Shiites, also blamed U.S. forces for the carnage, saying that the search for the missing soldier -- which began six days ago -- has forced the Mahdi Army underground, weakening the area's defenses.
"That forced Mahdi Army members, who were patrolling the streets, to vanish," Abdul-Ridha, who was injured in Monday's bombing, told the Associated Press from his bed in al-Sadr Hospital.
A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Christopher C. Garver, denied that coalition forces were responsible for the explosion, saying it occurred "despite our security efforts."
Meanwhile, the U.S. military reported that a Marine was killed Sunday in Anbar province west of Baghdad and that a member of the 89th Military Police Brigade was killed Monday in the eastern part of the capital. The Pentagon reported the death of a Marine Friday in Anbar. So far, 101 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq this month, making October the deadliest month for American forces since January 2005, when 107 U.S. soldiers were killed.
In other violence Monday, at least 12 people were killed and 41 were wounded in five car bombings in the capital, and three were killed and six injured in two roadside bombings, according to local police, Interior Ministry officials and wire service reports.
Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 21 people were killed in bombings and other violence, including three people who died when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt walked into a local police headquarters in the northern city of Kirkuk and detonated himself, according to Kirkuk police Capt. Emad Khider. He said a 5-year-old girl was among three killed in the blast. Ten people were injured.
Special correspondents Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Washington Post staff in Kirkuk contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company