Suicide Bombers (page 3)

WO female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Friday in separate attacks on Baghdad pet bazaars, killing at least 73 people and wounding dozens, police said.

The attacks were the deadliest in the Iraqi capital since 30,000 more American troops flooded into the centre of the country last spring.
In the first attack, a woman detonated explosives hidden under her traditional black Islamic robe at about 10.20 am in the central al-Ghazl market.
The weekly bazaar has been bombed several times since the war started but has recently reemerged as a popular shopping venue as Baghdad secu rity improved and a Friday ban on driving was lifted.
Police said at least 46 people were killed and 82 wounded.

Firefighters scooped up debris scattered among pools of blood, clothing and pigeon carcasses.

About 20 minutes later, a second female suicide bomber struck a bird market in a predominantly Shiite area in southeastern Baghdad. That blast killed as many as 27 people and wounded 25, police said.

The attacks shortly before the weekly Islamic call to prayer resounded across the capital were the latest in a series of violent incidents that have been chipping away at Iraqi confidence in the permanence of recent security gains.

Police initially said the bomb was hidden in a box of birds but determined it was a suicide attack after finding the woman's head, an officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to release the information.

At least four other suicide bombings have been staged by women since November, all in the volatile Diyala province northeast of the capital.

Many teenage boys were among the casualties in the alGhazl bombing, according to police and hospital officials.

The blast in front of Lahore High Court was the latest in a wave of attacks targeting politicians and security forces ahead of Feb. 18 parliamentary elections. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion wil11ikely fall on militants linked to Taliban and al-Qaida.

It came as Scotland Yard investigators visited Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, where laboratories are testing forensic evidence in the assassination two weeks ago of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi, a garrison city to the north. "There were about 60 to 70 policemen on duty when a man rammed into our ranks and soon there was a huge explosion," said police officer Syed Imtiaz Hussain who suffered wounds to his legs and groin. "I saw the bodies of other policemen burning. It was like hell."

The explosion left wounded people lying in pools of blood crying for help. TV footage showed at least four mangled bodies on the ground close to a destroyed motorbike and a piece of smoking debris. Ambulance workers loaded victims onto stretchers as police sirens wailed in the background.

The blast fired shrapnel as far as 100 meters (yards) away It also shattered windows in the court house and set off volleys of tear gas shells carried by the police, preventing people getting close to the victims in the seconds after the attack, witnesses said.

About 1,000 people were present in the Jama Masjid at Sherpao village in Charsadda district when the attacker detonated his bomb killing 54 people, the police said adding the toll could rise.

They said the bomber managed to enter the mosque with almost five to six kg of explosives even though a metal detector had been installed at the entrance.

"I was attending the Id-ul-Azha prayers with my sons and nephews when the blast took place," said Sherpao, who in April also survived a suicide attack in the same area in the North-West Frontier Province.

Sherpao and his son Sikander escaped without injuries but his another son Mustafa and a nephew were wounded.

Charsadda district police chief Feroz Shah told reporters that at least 54 people had died. Three security personnel were among the dead.

President Pervez Musharraf strongly condemned the attack and said "No Muslim could even think of committing such a heinous crime that takes the lives of a large number of innocent faithful who had gathered for Id prayers".

Musharraf said a handful of extremists were bent on forcing their `distorted thinking' on the majority of moderate and practicing Muslims, and this was `totally unacceptable'.

''More than 35 are killed,'' said Ali Shah Paktiawal, chief of the Kabul police's criminal branch. ''Police officers are among the dead.'' An Interior Ministry official could not confirm the death toll, saying around 30 were dead or wounded.

The Interior Ministry said five of the wounded were foreigners, including two Japanese, a Korean and two Pakistanis. Earlier reports that foreigners had been killed proved false.

If the death toll is confirmed, this would be the deadliest suicide attack to hit the country since the ouster of Taliban from power.

The attack appears to signal an escalation of such strikes.

At least 14 people were killed in four other suicide bombings over the past three days. Responsibility for all five attacks was claimed by Taliban insurgents. The previous deadliest bombing in Kabul, in 2002, killed 26 people.

A police eyewitness at the scene, outside the Kabul police chief's headquarters, said he had seen the bomber leap on to the bus as it was moving slowly away, its door wide open.

''It was a very, very successful suicide attack,'' a Taliban commander, Mullah Hayatullah Khan, told Reuters by satellite phone. ''We have plans for more successful attacks in future.'' The Taliban and their al Qaeda allies have adopted the tactics of Iraq's bloody insurgency to try to dispel the notion that government and foreign security forces are in control of the country.

Eighteen bodies, mostly police officers, and 10 wounded had been taken to nearby Jamhuriat Hospital, a doctor there said.

The bomb exploded during the morning rush hour, at a time when buses are ferrying police officers to their beats. On Friday and Saturday there were four suicide attacks in the south, centre and north of the country, including a blast in Kabul yesterday.

The truck that was loaded with explosives and rammed into a convoy of navy vehicles was obliterated in the attack. ( Photo Courtesy Buddhika Weerasinghe/Reuters)

The government blamed the rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, for the attack, a charge the group neither acknowledged nor denied. The vast majority of those killed and wounded were sailors, but a military spokesman said some civilians were caught in the explosion.

“This is a barbaric terrorist act,” said Keheliya Rambukwella, the government’s military spokesman. “It clearly shows that peace is not on the agenda of the L.T.T.E. and they don’t care about international opinion.”

But he said the government still planned to attend peace talks with the rebels, which are being brokered by Norway and are to resume Oct. 28 in Geneva after an eight-month hiatus. The separatists have said they may back out of the talks.

Monday’s attack was yet another sign that the four-year-old cease-fire was no longer being observed, even though neither the government nor the rebels have publicly disavowed it. It was also part of an increase in violence over the last year: more than 2,000 people, half of them civilians, have been killed in fighting since April, according to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

The explosion occurred on the day that Japan’s special envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa to shore up support for the peace talks. Norway’s envoy, Jon Hanssen-Bauer, and an American assistant secretary of state, Richard A. Boucher, are to arrive later in the week to try to ensure that the talks go ahead.

Mr. Hanssen-Bauer is to meet with separatist leaders on Thursday to encourage them to attend; the rebels said they would give their final answer then.

The truck bomber on Monday crashed into a convoy of 24 buses carrying unarmed navy personnel going on leave or returning to duty. The convoy was stopped at a transit center outside Habarana. About 340 navy personnel were at the center.

Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe, a military spokesman, said he believed that the attack was an act of revenge against the navy, which he said had succeeded in many recent attempts to stop the rebels from smuggling arms and explosives. On Sunday, the navy sank a suspected Tiger vessel that it said was transporting weapons off the northwestern coast.

Hours after the attack, Kfir fighter jets attacked a northern rebel stronghold, said Air Chief Marshal Donald Perera, head of Sri Lanka’s armed forces.

Tamil rebels say they need their own state because the Sinhalese majority discriminates against Tamils.

Thirteen people were also injured in the blast at the market in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province, said provincial government spokesman Dawood Ahmadi.

Some of the victims were children, said Interior Ministry spokesman Yousef Stanezai.

A spokesman for NATOled Canadian forces in Kandahar, Major Scott Lundy, said NATO troops had a patrol moving through the area where the blast happened, but no troops were hurt.

``They were close enough to hear the blast,'' he said, adding it was impossible to determine if the convoy was the target.

The attack, one of the deadliest bombings in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, came just days after NATO forces took charge of security in the volatile south from a US-led coalition.

Also on Thursday in Kandahar province, two roadside bombs three hours apart killed one Canadian soldier and wounded four.

Ahmadi said nine shops were burned in fires caused by the explosion in Panjwayi, which happened at around 2:30 pm when the market was busy. He said authorities hadn't yet established the identity of the suicide bomber.

The attack in North Waziristan came a day after a militant commander said a month-long ceasefire had been called to give time for tribal elders to broker a settlement to end the conflict in the region.

``We can confirm at the moment that a car packed with explosives rammed a checkpost on the BannuMiranshah road,'' Ghafoor Shah, said a government official.

Two intelligence sources said seven troopers were killed in the blast, while a third said six were killed and five wounded. ``It was a white car and only one person, the driver, was in it,'' an Intelligence official said.

Security forces have killed more than 300 militants, including 75 foreigners, in North Waziristan since last year, after the military switched its offensive from South Waziristan.

Several Arab Lieutenants of alQaeda leader Osama bin Laden have been killed in North Waziristan, and US Drone aircraft have carried out missile strikes on al-Qaeda targets from across the border in Afghanistan.

Most of the casualties have occurred since March, when fighting escalated dramatically after militant Muslim clerics called on tribesmen to take up arms following a missile strike by Pakistani helicopters on a large al-Qaeda camp close to the Afghan border.

The approach to the site of the suicide attack, around 300km southwest of Islamabad, was cordoned off.

Maj-Gen Parami Kulatunga, who is the third-highest ranking officer in the army, was traveling to work when the suicide bomber banged his motor cycle against the officer's car at Pannipityita, a suburb of Colombo, during the morning rush hour traffic.

The General, two soldiers and a bystander were killed instantly. The suicide bomber's body was torn into pieces.

Eight persons were injured in the attack and hospitalised.

Kulatunga's car took the full impact of the blast and immediately caught fire, the police said. His bodyguards had no time to react.

Military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) carried out the attack although there was no response from the guerrillas. Kulatunga is the senior most army officer to be killed in Sri Lanka's drawn out Tamil separatist campaign.

Two Major-Generals had been killed before him, but they were junior to him in rank at the time of their assassinations.

Two months ago, Tamil Tiger rebels carried out a suicide bomb attack against army chief Sarath Fonseka inside the army complex in Colombo leaving 11 dead. Fonseka is now in Singapore undergoing treatment.

Meanwhile, passengers in a pick-up truck, a three-wheel taxi and a van were taken to hospital when their vehicles were also hit by the bomb, which the police said was probably rigged up on a cycle parked on the side of the road.

The attack came as the LTTE rejected a peace overture by President Mahinda Rajapakse for a direct deal with the guerrillas.

The President had sent a message to the LTTE seeking a two-week truce over and above the Norwegian arranged ceasefire that is collapsing. The LTTE said they were opposed to any direct dealings with the Colombo Government and insisted working through peace broker Norway.

The LTTE's political wing leader S.P.Tamilselvan, said they were also concerned that Scandinavians would halt their truce monitoring work following a meeting scheduled for June 29 in Oslo.

The meeting was called by Oslo after the LTTE objected to three countries, Sweden, Finland and Denmark being in the monitoring mission after these three countries outlawed the LTTE last month.

The bomber exploded herself at the gate of the military hospital situated in the heavily guarded Army Headquarters compound. She is believed to have entered the complex with visitors to the military hospital.

"A powerful explosion activated by a woman Tamil Tiger suicide bomber claimed the lives of several army and civilian personnel near the military hospital gate this afternoon," the army said in a statement.

Besides the army chief, 26 other personnel were injured in the attack that came as the rebels stalled a second round of peace talks with increasing attacks on government troops.

General Fonseca, who suffered severe abdominal injuries, was rushed to the hospital where he underwent an emergency operation. He is said to be in serious condition.

Nearby roads were closed after the blast and the main highway connecting LTTE stronghold Jaffna to the rest of the rest of the country was cut off by the government troops.

The rebels have stepped up their attacks on military targets since the November election of President Mahinda Rajpakse. The Scandinavian truce monitoring mission said the bombing further undermined Norway's attempts to broker peace.

The blasts scattered bodies across the courtyard, destroyed stalls of vendors selling religious texts and ripped turquoise tiles from the walls. The mosque loudspeaker blared a message urging people to donate blood, while police commandos piled charred bodies into pickup trucks. A white blanket covering one body was so soaked with blood that someone tossed a black cloth over it. People sifted through pools of blood and filled handcarts with shoes and body parts. "I was inside, so I fell to the ground," said Nadhum al-Bahadeli, a businessman whose white shirt was splattered with blood across one shoulder, as he helped to clear debris. "Other people were beneath me. When I stood up, I saw lots of dead people scattered across the courtyard, both men and women."

The well-guarded Baratha Mosque is the main religious stronghold of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iranian-backed party that leads Parliament's major Shiite political bloc.

• The attack came as the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in an interview with the BBC that if a unified government was not formed soon, a sectarian war could erupt in Iraq and that such a war could engulf the entire Middle East.

Panic erupted then, he said, and worshipers who had been trying to leave streamed back toward the main courtyard. Two other bombers slipped in during the chaos and detonated their explosives near the separate prayer areas for men and women, mosque and security officials said. Sheik Sagheir said some initial reports indicated that at least one of the bombers might have been a man dressed as a woman.

It was clear that the explosions went to the very heart of the Shiites' long-held feeling that they are victims, as had scores of other attacks in the past three years of civil strife. On Thursday, a car bomb exploded just hundreds of yards from the golden-domed Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, killing at least 10 people in what appeared to be an attempt to provoke a bloody cycle of reprisals.