A series of suicide bombings in Iraq has left dozens of people dead and about 100 injured.
At least 55 people were killed and 62 injured when two bombs were detonated outside two Shia mosques in Khanaqin in north-eastern Iraq, officials say.
The bombers blew themselves up while hundreds of worshippers were attending Friday prayers.
UPDATE: 74 Worshippers have now died. While car bombs targeted a hotel with journalists killing 8 Iraqis! The car bombs blast collapsed some residential buildings.
An Interior Ministry official said he believed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Al-Qaida in Iraq was behind the bombing.
UPDATE 2: 82 Killed. “…dozens of people were still searching for relatives and friends. Others collected shredded copies of the Muslim holy book, the Quran. One survivor, Omar Saleh, said he was on his knees bowing in prayer when the bomb exploded…”
Meanwhile…
The Pentagon’s admission – despite earlier denials – that US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in Falluja last year is more than a public relations issue – it has opened up a debate about the use of this weapon in modern warfare.
The admission contradicted a statement this week from the new and clearly under-briefed US ambassador in London Robert Holmes Tuttle that US forces “do not use napalm or white phosphorus as weapons”.
Elsewhere…
The bunker was discovered by U.S. forces during a raid on Sunday. Inside they found 173 men and teenage boys, many of them malnourished, beaten and showing signs of torture.
“The talk about this has been inaccurate,” a defiant Jabor told a packed news conference, his first public appearance since the scandal broke, adding that he had only commented on the issue because his aides had pressured him to do so…
“There were only five, or at most seven, who showed signs of having been beaten,” he said. “I don’t accept for any officer to even slap a prisoner.”
and just a little north…
Iraqi Kurds will have no choice but to proclaim independence in the event of civil war in
Iraq, Massud Barzani, president of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish zone, warned.In an interview with Turkish television station NTV on a day of fresh bombings of Shiite mosques in Iraq, Barzani said an outbreak of civil war would force Iraqi Kurds to exercise the “right” to independence.
sigh* disgusting news all over
It happens everyday that if we were to talk about it whenever it happens people will become apathetic (yea as if they haven’t already).
Emad’s cartoon reminded me how important it is to utilize visual media, when the terrorists kidnap just one foreign person and threatens to kill him/her the whole world knows about it but when tens are killed and more are tortured everyday nobody seems to notice.
madness!
may god help them get through it.
I just want to tell Nadia im sorry for what happened and i wish it was me and not your Dad specially on a day like this , but its going to be alright She is a strong lady please becarefull and may God be with you all.
lots of love
angela stephan