BAGHDAD, April 18 -- A string of bombings killed at least 127 people across Baghdad Wednesday, police said, as bloodshed spiked two months into a U.S.-led crackdown meant to placate the Iraqi capital.
Some news accounts suggested the death toll may be higher. The Reuters news agency, quoting local officials, said as many as 170 people had been killed, and the Associated Press said 157 had been killed....The deadliest attack occurred Wednesday afternoon when a car bomb ripped through the al-Sadriya market in a predominantly Shiite area of central Baghdad and killed at least 82 people, police said. The same market was the site of a Feb. 3 bombing that killed more than 125 people, the gravest single bombing since the war in Iraq began.
Adil Awad, a doctor who is director of Kindi Hospital, said there were at least 115 dead from Wednesday's Sadriya bombings at his hospital, and 126 wounded. He said there were another 15 dead at another hospital. "We have a disaster now here in the hospital," Awad said in a brief telephone interview. Women could be heard shrieking in the background as he spoke.
Earlier, a suicide bomber slammed into a police checkpoint in the vast Shiite enclave of Sadr City, killing at least 30, police said. Other bombings, near a hospital in the central Baghdad area of Karrada and in a minibus in the northwest area of Risafi, killed at least 15, police said.
For those who can handle it, here are pictures of what it looked like on the scene.
This is just the latest in a long series of deadly massacres that have taken place in Iraq this year. AP:
Some of the deadliest days in Iraq since January 2006:
— April 18: At least 157 people are killed in four bombings in mostly Shi'ite areas of Baghdad, including 112 in an explosion at a market.—March 29: At least 179 people are killed, including 104 by multiple suicide bombers in the town of Khalis and in predominantly Shi'ite markets in Baghdad.
—March 27: Truck bombs hit markets in the northwestern city Tal Afar, killing at least 63 and wounding more than 150 people.
—March 6: Officials report 194 deaths, including 120 by two suicide bombers in a crowd of Shi'ite pilgrims in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
—Feb. 3: Officials report 167 deaths, including 137 by a suicide truck bomber at a market in a predominantly Shi'ite area of Baghdad.
—Feb. 1: Officials say 138 people are killed nationwide, including 73 who die in two suicide bombers in a crowded market in Hillah.
—Jan. 22: Officials report 138 deaths, including 88 by a parked car bomb followed immediately by a suicide car bomber in a predominantly Shi'ite area in Baghdad.
—Jan. 16: Violence throughout the country kills 142 people, including 70 in bombings at a university in Baghdad.
—Dec. 12, 2006: A suicide bomber strikes a crowd of mostly poor Shi'ites in Baghdad, killing at least 63 people and wounding more than 200. At least 59 other Iraqis are killed or found dead.
—Dec. 2, 2006: A triple car bombing strikes a food market in a predominantly Shi'ite area in central Baghdad, killing at least 51 and wounding 90 people.
—Nov. 23, 2006: Mortar rounds and five car bombs kill 215 people in the Shi'ite neighborhood of Sadr City.
—Nov. 12, 2006: Raging sectarian violence across the country claims at least 159 lives, including 35 men blown apart while waiting to join Iraq’s police force.
—Jan. 5, 2006: Suicide bombers infiltrate a line of police recruits and a crowd of Shi'ite pilgrims in Baghdad as insurgents kill 125 civilians and five U.S. soldiers.
As with all previous senseless massacres of innocent men, women, and children in Iraq, I fully expect wall to wall media coverage and candlelight vigils throughout the nation. It's what we as a people do when faced with such senseless tragedies, right?
UPDATE: In related news, Richard Engel explains Sadr's recent decision to withdraw from the government:
This week Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his six ministers out of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, allegedly because the Iraqi leader refused to set a deadline for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. But officials close to Sadr told me today that's not the real reason.
"Maliki violated an agreement he had with Sadr. He crossed certain red lines by arresting so many of Sadr's men," I was told.When the Baghdad security plan began a few months ago, backed up the U.S. troop "surge," Sadr's officials claim to have had an understanding with Maliki that the military crackdown would not target his fighters, the Mahdi Army. Many of the Mahdi Army leaders went underground, hid their weapons or left Iraq for neighboring Iran.
Sadr feels Maliki broke the deal. Officials in the Mahdi Army say U.S. and Iraqi forces have arrested 800 members of Sadr's movement in the last several months, including Sheikh Qais Khazali, who is reputed to be one of the movement's top commanders.
Sadr sources say when U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested Khazali about two weeks ago in southern Iraq they also seized a laptop computer containing key information about Sadr's militia.
"I expect Sadr will soon return to the armed fight," I was told.
If this is true, it shreds all of the happy talk about the surge that we've been hearing from some in recent weeks.
Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. The president's escalation of our military involvement is drawing us deeper into the military aspects of that conflict, but it is doing nothing whatsoever to resolve its political dimensions. In fact, as this story shows, it may very well be making them worse.
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