Close Baghdad market attack kills 18 by Tuesday 16 May 2006 3:53 PM GMT
A car bomb detonated next to an oil tanker killed 18 At least 18 people have died in an attack on a crowded Baghdad market as deadly unrest continues to rock Iraq. Police said the attack in the commercial Shaab neighborhood began when gunmen shot five guards at an open-air parking lot that served as a small market. As bystanders rushed to the scene, a car bomb detonated next to an oil tanker, which exploded and engulfed the area in a fireball. The ground was littered with remnants of the charred vehicle and sandals and clothes of the many dead and at least 37 injured. The motive for the attack, which appeared to be intended to kill as many people as possible, was unclear, but it may have been sectarian. The Shaab neighborhood is mainly Shiite. Roadside bombs In other unrest on Tuesday, fighting between suspected insurgents and Iraqi police killed at least six civilians in Baghdad and officials said roadside bombs had killed three US soldiers. Dozens were wounded in the Shaab market attack The shootout in Baghdad broke out in the late morning between gunmen riding in three cars and Iraqi police in Dora, one of Baghdad's most violent neighbourhoods. The six civilians were killed in the crossfire, said an Iraqi police official. Elsewhere a US soldier died when a roadside bomb exploded near Rasheed airfield, a former Iraqi air force installation in southern Baghdad, damaging a Humvee and also wounding an Iraqi civilian, said another Iraqi police official. Two other soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The attacks raised to at least 2,448 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the start of the war in 2003, according to count by the Associated Press. Sectarian tensions Meanwhile, another roadside bomb destroyed a liquor store in the Iraqi capital in what appeared to be the third attack on the shop by militants determined to impose Islamic customs by closing down such establishments. None of the stores in Baghdad's Karradah shopping district had opened yet, and the blast caused no casualties, police said. Some Muslim religious leaders in Iraq have tried to ban the drinking of alcohol, even though it is legal under the country's new constitution. In other developments on Tuesday Iraq's interior ministry announced that it had arrested two members of al-Qaeda in Iraq. It named the men as Salah Hussein Abdul-Razzaq, captured in Ramadi and Omar Ahmed Salah, held in Baghdad. Agencies By You can find this article at: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/59FF52D0-8EC7-475F-9390- 3F02FB844702.htm Close ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Everything you need is one click away. Make Yahoo! your home page now. http://us.click.yahoo.com/AHchtC/4FxNAA/yQLSAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
