Fuel truck blows up at Iraqi army base - police

[maddezmom]

BAGHDAD, Jan 31 (Reuters) - A fuel truck blew up at an Iraqi army base in Miqdadiya, 90 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, on Wednesday in what police said was a suspected suicide attack that may have caused many casualties.

There was no immediate information on the number of casualties but residents said the explosion caused a huge ball of fire and a loud blast that was heard throughout the town.
link: http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR125393.htm

[maddezmom]

1. 6 killed in car bombings across Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two parked car bombs struck simultaneously in separate areas in Baghdad Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding 15, police said.


One of the blasts was targeting a transit area in central Baghdad where people can catch minibuses to predominantly Shiite neighborhoods in the capital. The attack occurred at 12:45 p.m. on Jamhuriyah Street near the busy Shorja market, killing four people and wounding 12 others, police said.

About the same time, another car packed with explosives blew up in the religiously mixed neighborhood of Maamoun in western Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding three others, police said, adding the target of the attack was not immediately known

link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[Eugene]

2. Reuters Factbox: more car bombings, mortar attacks, an air strike, etc.

It has been a very busy day in Iraq. :(

FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, Jan 31
31 Jan 2007 12:32:19 GMT
Source: Reuters

Jan 31 (Reuters) - Following are security and other developments in Iraq
at 1200 GMT on Wednesday:

* Denotes a new or updated item.

* BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army killed 210 insurgents and arrested 342 others during the last
two days in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.

* BAGHDAD - Ten mortar rounds landed in different parts of Adhamiya district in northern
Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 20, police said.

-snip-

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded eight others in Bab al-Muadham area
in central Baghdad, police said.

-snip-

MAHMUDIYA - A U.S. helicopter killed two insurgents on Wednesday in an attack on four men
trying to plant a roadside bomb in the town of Mahmudiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad,
the U.S. military said. Residents at the town said the airstrike, which occurred around
midnight, targeted Shi'ite followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marking Ashura.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM339280.htm

[Bonescrat]

3. Iran must have done it... nt

[bemildred]

4. Truck must have come from Iran ...

:thumbsup:

[hatrack]

5. Probably the gasoline, too -pumped from beneath the Desert Of Evil!

nt

[bemildred]

6. Suicide bombers ‘entering Iraq from Syria’

Then again, it could have been a Syrian truck.

Edit: notice the complete lack of attribution of these statements to anyone in particular.

Dozens of al-Qaeda suicide bombers from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Sudan are crossing into Iraq from Syria every month, a senior US official said on Tuesday.

Speaking to the Financial Times in London, the official said that, while sectarian conflict now represented the biggest threat to the country, the violence was being stoked up from abroad.

“This is the most difficult challenge,” he said. “How do you bring down sectarian violence in the face of this al-Qaeda campaign to prompt sectarian violence?”

But he added that the US’s new strategy for Iraq also depended on much greater co-operation from the Iraqi government.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/83bd20d8-b088-11db-8a62-0000779e2340.html

[bemildred]

7. Iran May Have Trained Attackers That Killed 5 American Soldiers, U.S. and Iraqis Say

Then again, the truck could be from Iran. Or maybe it was Syrian-Persian mutant hybrids that were behind it ...

Again notice the complete lack of attribution of all this to anyone in particular.

BAGHDAD, Jan. 30 — Investigators say they believe that attackers who used American-style uniforms and weapons to infiltrate a secure compound and kill five American soldiers in Karbala on Jan. 20 may have been trained and financed by Iranian agents, according to American and Iraqi officials knowledgeable about the inquiry.

The officials said the sophistication of the attack astonished investigators, who doubt that Iraqis could have carried it out on their own — one reason a connection to Iran is being closely examined. Officials cautioned that no firm conclusions had been drawn and did not reveal any direct evidence of a connection.

A senior Iraqi official said the attackers had carried forged American identity cards and American-style M-4 rifles and had thrown stun grenades of a kind used only by American forces here.

Tying Iran to the deadly attack could be helpful to the Bush administration, which has been engaged in an escalating war of words with Iran.

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt1_31_7.htm

[rodeodance]

8. 12 dead in car bombs, attacks in Baghdad

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AnKFs23.O53gkCJf7mFja06s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--


12 dead in car bombs, attacks in Baghdad

By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A series of car bombs struck mostly Shiite areas in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing eight people, while a mortar attack on a Sunni neighborhood killed four in more retaliatory sectarian violence.


The bodies of three Sunni professors and a student also turned up in the morgue, three days after they were abducted by gunmen from a law school in a predominantly Shiite area in northern Baghdad, the Ministry of Higher Education said.

"The continuation of the assaults on higher education and the bloodshed of its sons show again the presence of dark forces that try to stop the country's progress and try to spread hatred among the people of one country," the ministry said.

In the deadliest violence Wednesday, two parked car bombs struck simultaneously in separate areas in Baghdad, killing at least six people and wounding 15.