Car bomber kills 125 in Iraq massacre

IN Iraq’s bloodiest attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a suicide car bomber blew himself up next to dozens of police and national guard recruits yesterday, killing at least 125 people and wounding 130.

Torn limbs, feet and other body parts littered the street outside the clinic, where the recruits had been queuing for medicals, in Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad.

Health officials said the death toll could rise.

“The martyrs may be more because there are a number of body parts to be counted,” Mahmoud Abdul Reda said at a hospital. Morgue workers unloaded plastic body bags from pick-up trucks as weeping relatives looked on.

Provincial police headquarters said several people were arrested in connection with the blast but did not elaborate.

The attack in a city with a majority Shi’ite population came as the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance sought the support of other parties to form Iraq’s first democratically-elected government.

Insurgents have stepped up their attacks against predominantly Shi’ite targets in recent weeks.

People gathered at the site of the attack reportedly chanted slogans against the ‘wahabis’ referring to adherents of the puritan form of Islam preached by Osama bin Laden.

Following a funeral procession in Hillah, many of the dead will be taken to Najaf for burial.

Hillah is located just below the ‘triangle of death’, the mixed Sunni-Shi’ite region south of the capital that has earned the nickname owing to the frequency of insurgent bombing.

The blast outside a clinic was so powerful it nearly vaporised the suicide bomber’s car, leaving only its engine partially intact. The injured were piled into pick-up trucks and ambulances and taken to nearby hospitals.

Outside the concrete and brick building, people gingerly walked around small lakes of blood that pooled on the street.

Scorch marks infused with blood covered the clinic’s walls and dozens of people helped pile body parts, including arms, feet and limbs, into blankets.

Piles of shoes and tattered clothes were thrown into a corner. Angry crowds gathered outside the hospital chanting “God is great”, and demanded to know the fate of their relatives.

“I was lined up near the medical centre, waiting for my turn for the medical exam to apply for work in the police,” Abdullah Salih, 22, said. “Suddenly I heard a very big explosion. I was thrown several metres away and I had burns in my legs and hands, then I was taken to the hospital.”

The director of Hillah General Hospital, Dia Mohammed, said most the victims were recruits waiting to take physicals as part of the application process to join the Iraqi police and national guard.

“I was lucky because I was the last person in line when the explosion took place. Suddenly there was panic and many frightened people stepped on me. I lost consciousness and the next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital” said Muhsin Hadi, 29, a recruit. One of his legs was broken in the blast.

The second deadliest Iraq attack took place in August 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Najaf, killing more than 85 people, including Shi’ite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

A second carbomb exploded at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 20 miles away, killing at least one policeman.

The suicide bombing came a day after Iraqi officials announced Syria had captured and handed over Saddam Hussein’s half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency.

The arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan also ended months of Syrian denials that it was harbouring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.