http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=1474198


Reuters
KERBALA/RAMADI, Iraq - Two suicide bombers killed 120 people and wounded more than 200 in attacks near a Shi'ite holy shrine and a police recruiting center on Thursday, the bloodiest day in Iraq for four months.

Seven U.S. soldiers were killed in two roadside bomb attacks, three bombs exploded in Baghdad and insurgents sabotaged an oil pipeline near the northern city of Kirkuk, causing a huge fire.

Coming a day after 58 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings, the latest bloodshed ratcheted up tension between Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs and majority Shi'ite Muslims.

The suicide bombers struck in Kerbala, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest cities, and Ramadi, a Sunni Arab stronghold in western Anbar province and a hotbed of the insurgency.

"This is a war against Shi'ites," said Rida Jawad al-Takia, a senior member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the country's leading Shi'ite parties.

"Apparently to the terrorists, no Shi'ite child or woman should live," he told Reuters. "We are really worried. It seems they want a civil war."

The bombings shattered hopes Iraq might start 2006 on a more peaceful footing than in 2005, allowing for a swift withdrawal of some of the 150,000 U.S. troops in the country.

BLOODIEST WEEKS

In all, violence has killed more than 240 people and wounded more than 280 in the five days since the New Year started, a death toll comparable with some of the nation's bloodiest weeks since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Thursday's U.S. death toll was the highest for a single day since last month's parliamentary elections, which have yet to produce a government. Final results from the vote are expected soon but it could be months before a new parliament is formed.

President Jalal Talabani blamed the attacks on "groups of dark terror" and said they would fail to stop Iraqis forming a national unity government capable of meeting the demands of the country's rival sects and ethnic groups.

The Kerbala bomber detonated an explosive belt laced with ball bearings and a grenade, killing 50 and wounding 138 at a market within sight of the golden dome of the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shi'ite Islam.

Television pictures showed pools of blood in the street, which was littered with debris. Passers-by loaded the wounded into the backs of cars and vans, and one black-clad woman stood crying while clutching her dead or wounded baby to her chest.

On Wednesday, a car bomb wounded three people in the first attack of its kind in Kerbala since December 2004. In March 2004 coordinated suicide bombings during an annual religious festival in the city killed more than 90 people.

POLICE RECRUITS TARGETED

About an hour after the blast, another bomber blew himself up near police recruits in the western city of Ramadi, killing 70 people and wounding 65, hospital sources said.

The U.S. military said the blast ripped through a line of some 1,000 men waiting to be security screened at a glass and ceramics works that was used as a temporary recruiting center.

After the debris and body parts had been cleared away, hundreds of Iraqis returned to the queue, the military said.

Guerrillas have often attacked Iraqi police and army recruits, whom the Americans hope will eventually replace them in the fight against the largely Sunni Arab insurgency, allowing U.S. troops to withdraw.

Many young Iraqi men are drawn to work in the security forces by the promise of relatively high pay.

The deaths of the seven U.S. soldiers took the number of U.S. military fatalities since the March 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein to 2,189, according to Reuters figures.

Five were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and two were killed by a similar device near the southern city of Najaf.

Other devices exploded in Baghdad, but with less impact.

Three car bombs, two of them suicide attacks, rocked the capital in quick succession, suggesting a level of coordination that may be a response by Sunni Arab insurgents to the largely peaceful parliamentary elections. The bombs killed two people.

The Kerbala and Ramadi bombings were the bloodiest attacks in Iraq since September 14 when a suicide bomber killed 114 people in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad. Some 150 were killed that day.

Mistrust between Shi'ites and Sunnis has been heightened by the results of last month's elections, which some Sunni and secular leaders say were rigged to favor the Shi'ites.

After a series of bilateral meetings in Kurdistan, political leaders have agreed to meet in Baghdad soon to push their plan for a national unity government able to stem the bloodshed.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, Gideon Long, Ahmed Rasheed, Omar al-Ibadi, Hiba Moussa and Ross Colvin in Baghdad)


Copyright 2006 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

War sucks.

They are on the brink of civil war over there.

A teacher said to me when I was a sophmore in high school, so sometime in 2002-2003, that Iraq was going to become "Bush's Vietnam." I've never forgotten about that because obviously then it was early to say something like that, but as the months roll on, I think it's becoming more and more of a truth.

I read this article and once again I will say pull the fuck out of Iraq. Damn, I wish there were more isolationist like me...

By the way, I didn't know that teachers in high school were allowed to share their political views with students.

It was at lunch and I also went to private school where they let many more things slide. That's not to say I was brought up in high school in a liberal love fest at all. Teachers in private schools have much more freedom and in many ways are much more allowed to be their own person to the students than public school teachers who are in much more danger of lawsuit, losing state license etc etc.

If you are a true isolationist, then do you agree that the U.S. never should have gone into Iraq in the first place?

Well it was a lot closer to 160 total deaths... but I believe only 2 or 3 Americans died.

As far as Vietnam goes, when comparing two wars that are not WW1 and 2, your really being quite irrisponsible, because the fact is that it's not even close at all, you can not show me a comparison that is accurate.

Pre-emptive war (now you may argue the Gulf of Tonkin incident was reason enough, but you would be horribly wrong)

Went in, can't achieve victory, disagreement over the real reasons for going to war, nobody can agree on when and how to leave, prolonged stay, eventual withdrawal with no victory...

Keep in mind I said it seems like Iraq is becoming "Bush's Vietnam"

In Vietnam it was "We have to stop the Communists in Vietnam because if they get Vietnam it will be the beginning of a slippery slope where all of Asia will fall to the Communists"

In Iraq it was "We have to remove the evil Saddam Hussein because he has WMDs and we are at a great danger if we let a volatile person such as that who is willing to target the U.S. and its citizens have weapons like that. He violated UN sanctions and he also aids terrorists, some of which had involvement in 9/11"

There are more similarities than you think.

Then dont call it vietnam, because you know what happened at the end of vietnam? Soldiers were spat on, denied jobs, refused benefits.

Why did we lose Nam? Because of politicians... but in Iraq we have actual military doing the targeting, we fought nam on a political agenda, thats why we lost. We fought Iraq with swiftness, and might, thats why bagdad fell in a matter of days.

I think the Vietnamese would beg to differ.