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Bombing Kills 8 at Baghdad Police Station

Posted on: Thursday, 9 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

A suicide car bomber crashed into a police station in Iraq's largest Shiite Muslim enclave Thursday, killing eight people, himself and a passenger, and injuring as many as 45 others. Earlier, gunmen shot dead a Spanish military attache at his home.

The bombing in Sadr City, a Baghdad district that's home to an estimated 2 million Shiites, was the latest in a string of devastating attacks to rock the city over the past two months. As in previous attacks, no one claimed responsibility for Thursday's blast.

The violence, six months to the day after Baghdad fell to American forces, underscored the predicament of a city whose deliverance from Saddam Hussein's tyranny has been repeatedly marred by terrorism, attacks on U.S. forces and sectarian unrest.

Policemen and some in the crowd that gathered outside the police station after the blast offered an assortment of possible culprits. The list ranged from non-Iraqi Arab militants to Saddam loyalists and Shiite radicals with an ax to grind with the Sadr City police after the arrest earlier this week of one their clerics.

Across town in the upscale Mansour area, a Spaniard identified as Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez, an air force sergeant attached to Spain's National Intelligence Center, was shot to death after four men, one dressed as a Shiite cleric, knocked on his door, according to a Spanish diplomat in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The assailants' motives and identities were not clear.

Some 50 policemen had gathered in the police station's courtyard Thursday morning to collect their pay when a white Oldsmobile sped up. Two policemen on guard duty at the gate opened fire, but the car went through, crashing into a parked vehicle and exploding.

"I ran and got hit in the leg. When I looked back, all I could see was fire," officer Khalid Sattar Jabar, 25, said from his hospital bed. He said he got a look at the driver: a man with a beard and a thick head of hair.

Mangled police cars were scattered around the bomb site and debris filled the big courtyard in front of the one-story police building. The blast left a crater about 10 feet across and 4 feet deep, said a U.S. Army officer at the scene.

Three policemen and five civilians were killed, said Capt. Sean Kirley of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. In addition, two people in the car died, said Iraqi police Capt. Bassem Sami.

Sami said 28 people were wounded, some seriously, but police at al-Kindi Hospital said 28 wounded were being treated there while officials at Qasim al-Mubarka hospital said they had at least nine. Police said they had reports of an additional eight wounded at Ibn Nafees Hospital.

The blast attracted a crowd that at one point peaked at about 2,000 people and who became angry when scores of American soldiers in Humvees arrived at the scene, throwing a security ring around the area. There was panic later when two men ran toward the crowd shouting that another car bomb was about to go off. It was a false alarm.

Later, the crowd became agitated when a rumor spread that American soldiers were surrounding the nearby office of Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric who opposes the U.S. occupation. He was not at the office and his Baghdad representative, sheik Qais al-Khaza'ali, later said that soldiers looking for weapons had wanted to search the office but left without doing so.

Hundreds of al-Sadr supporters, armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, were guarding the office in the afternoon, sealing off streets leading to it and taking positions on rooftops. About 300 armed members of "al-Mahdi Army," a militia established by al-Sadr in July, paraded outside the office in a show of force.

The mainly Shiite area was known as "Saddam City" until Saddam's ouster in April when it was renamed after al-Sadr's father, a top Shiite cleric killed in 1999 by suspected security agents.

The area has been tense for days with supporters of the younger al-Sadr demanding that the U.S.-appointed local council be replaced by one they claim to have been democratically elected in polls they organized.

An Iraqi policeman who pushed through the crowd was stabbed in the upper right arm after being set upon by the mob, which chanted "No, no to America!" He was treated by U.S. military medics at the scene. Associated Press Television News camera crews also were attacked by the crowds and had some equipment stolen. One crew member was slightly injured. Scores of other journalists, including Iraqis, were jostled by the crowd.

"It was a huge blast and everything became dark from the debris and sand. I was thrown to the ground," said Mohammed Adnan, 35, who sells watermelons opposite the station. Vegetable seller Fakhriya Jarallah said two of her sons were repairing the outside wall of the compound when the blast occurred.

"I ran across the road like a madwoman to find out what happened to my sons. But thanks to God they are both safe," she said.

Saad Drawal al-Dharaji, 29, a wounded police sergeant taken to al-Mubarka hospital said a local imam had threatened to take action against the police station unless it turned over some policemen for "punishment" for having served under Saddam.

"We will have our revenge for this," said al-Dharaji. He didn't know the name of the cleric.

Wounded officer Jabar said another possible motive for the bombing was the continued detention of Shiite cleric Moayed al-Khazraji, arrested by the U.S. occupation force Monday.

The cleric's supporters rallied at the police station Wednesday to demand his release, but dispersed peacefully. Police said the cleric is not in their custody.

Thursday's bombing was latest in a wave of similar attacks that have killed about 120 people since early August when the Jordanian Embassy was targeted. The U.N. headquarters in Baghdad came next before an Aug. 29 blast in the holy city of Najaf killed at least 85.

The bombings have heightened tension in the city, where there are nearly daily roadside bomb attacks against U.S. troops. Gunfire and explosions are a nighttime fixture.

The city's tenuous security is best manifested by the massive concrete blast barriers and coils of barbed wire that have over recent weeks sprung up around hotels, government departments and along stretches of road that run parallel to U.S. military bases.

In other developments Thursday:

- A 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a U.S. convoy northeast of Baghdad, the military reported.

- U.S. soldiers conducted a major raid near the Syrian border and detained 112 suspects, including a high-ranking official in the former Republican Guard.

- U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer marked six months since the ouster of Saddam Hussein by recalling the fall of the regime as "one of the most dramatic moments in Iraq's history."

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