Market blast kills 9 as UN cuts back staff
Townspeople suspected that US soldiers stationed nearby may have been the target.
Also yesterday, the US military said an American soldier was killed in an ambush in Kirkuk. Amid the continuing violence, the UN announced it was cutting its staff in Baghdad, and Iraqis prepared to bury an assassinated member of Iraq’s Governing Council.
The mortar round exploded late on Thursday night at a market in this Sunni Muslim city about 30 miles north of Baghdad. Police General Waleed Khalid said nine civilians died and 15 were wounded. US officials put the injured figure at 18.
Khalid described the attack as a “criminal act aimed at hurting Iraqi civilians”. However, several townspeople, who spoke on condition they not be identified, said they believed the target was a government building 250 yards away, where US soldiers stay.
In Baghdad, one soldier from the 173rd Airborne Brigade was killed and two others were wounded during an ambush in northern Iraq. The incident occurred when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at their vehicle. The names of the victims were withheld pending notification of kin.
The death raised to 86 the number of American soldiers killed by hostile fire since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq. The military also announced that a soldier from the 4th Infantry Division died and another was injured in a fire on Thursday night in an abandoned building in the Tikrit area. No further details were released.
Meanwhile, the flag-draped coffin carrying the body of Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, arrived on Friday for burial in the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Najaf one day after she died of wounds suffered in an ambush near her Baghdad home on September 20.
Al-Hashimi, a Shi’ite Muslim, was the first member of the council targeted for assassination and was the leading candidate to become Iraq’s ambassador to the UN.
The inability of the US-led coalition to stop the violence was behind a decision by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to order a further reduction of UN staff in Iraq.
US spokesman Fred Eckhard said he did not know how many of the 86 remaining international staffers would leave for Amman, Jordan, under the latest order. They are to depart within the next two days.
UN spokeswoman Veronique Taveau insisted the UN was not abandoning the Iraqi people. “Security in Iraq is really a concern for us but we are committed to working with the Iraqi population,” she said on Friday.
The new cuts were announced as the Security Council debates a new resolution the United States hopes will bring new troops and money to Iraq.
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