BAGHDAD, Iraq – A blood-drenched October has passed into a violent early November as a motorcycle rigged with explosives ripped through a crowded Shiite market in Sadr City yesterday and suspected Sunni insurgent gunmen killed a Shiite dean of Baghdad University.
The attacks showed no signs of abating after at least 1,272 Iraqis were killed in the first full month of autumn and the 43rd month of the U.S. bid to quell violence and build democracy in Iraq, according to an Associated Press count. The figure is a minimum since many deaths go unreported, but the total is higher than any other month since the AP began keeping track in May 2005.
AP statistics also showed that nearly twice as many Iraqi security forces died last month as U.S. forces – 194 versus 106. The Interior Ministry said at least 119 Iraqi policemen were killed.
The Iraqi president, visiting Paris, said yesterday that all U.S. forces could be gone from Iraq within three years.
“Two to three years are needed to build our security forces and say bye-bye to our friends,” Jalal Talabani said. The president, a Kurd whose ethnic group owes its relative prosperity and independence in northern Iraq to the United States, has repeatedly predicted an earlier departure for American forces than U.S. generals have.
Asked about Talabani's remarks, Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Todd Vician, said: “All parties agree on the desire to hand over control for security to the Iraqis as soon as possible.”
At least 49 people were killed or found dead in Iraq yesterday, including the seven killed when the motorcycle blew up in a crowded market. The bombing wounded 45, many of them seriously, police said.
It was the first bombing in Sadr City since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the lifting Tuesday of the week-old U.S.-Iraqi army security blockade on the sprawling Shiite slum of 2.5 million people.
Police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said the explosives went off at 4 p.m., usually the busiest time at Mereidi market, one of the neighborhood's most popular commercial centers.
The rigged motorcycle was left in a section of the market that specialized in the sales of secondhand motorbikes and spare parts. Videotape by Associated Press Television News in the aftermath of the bombing showed scores of mangled motorbikes and large pools of blood.
Gheith Jassim al-Saadi, a 36-year-old laborer, arrived at the scene shortly after the blast. He had planned to go to the market earlier to have two friends repair his motorbike.
“Motorcycles were scattered everywhere, blood was on the ground and crowds of people were looking for their relatives in panic,” he said. “I do not know what happened to my two friends.”
The slain university dean, Jassim al-Asadi, a Shiite, was returning home after picking up his son from school and his wife from her teaching job, when gunmen drove alongside his car and fired, police Lt. Ahmed Ibrahim said. Al-Asadi's wife and son also were killed.
With his death, at least 155 educators have perished since the war began. The academics apparently were singled out for their public stature and views on controversial issues in a climate of deepening Islamic fundamentalism.
