{"id":448,"date":"2004-12-19T22:18:15","date_gmt":"2004-12-20T04:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=448"},"modified":"2004-12-19T22:20:51","modified_gmt":"2004-12-20T04:20:51","slug":"62-die-in-iraq-car-bomb-blasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=448","title":{"rendered":"62 Die in Iraq Car Bomb Blasts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gulf-daily-news.com\/Story.asp?Article=99391&#038;Sn=WORL&#038;IssueID=27275\">bloodier-than-usual day<\/a> in Iraq as the terrorists desperately work to stave off the pending elections.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Suicide car bombers struck Iraq&#8217;s two main Shi&#8217;ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala yesterday, killing at least 62 people and wounding nearly 130, six weeks before a historic election.<\/p>\n<p>Both bombs, which went off about two hours apart, exploded near crowded bus stations in a seemingly co-ordinated attempt to cause as much bloodshed as possible among Shi&#8217;ites, a long-oppressed majority expected to dominate the January 30 vote.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in Baghdad, gunmen killed three Electoral Commission employees after hauling them from a car on a busy street.<\/p>\n<p>In Najaf, the suicide bomber detonated his vehicle about 300 metres from the Imam Ali shrine, near crowds of people queuing for buses and taxis and not far from busy offices.<\/p>\n<p>Medical officials said there were at least 48 dead and 90 wounded in the blast. Police imposed a curfew in Najaf&#8217;s old city.<\/p>\n<p>In Karbala, where a suicide bomber stuck about two hours earlier, the main hospital said 14 people were killed and 39 wounded. A hospital official said all appeared to be civilians with many women and children among them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In an unrelated occurrence, I&#8217;ve just about finished my Christmas shopping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a bloodier-than-usual day in Iraq as the terrorists desperately work to stave off the pending elections. Suicide car bombers struck Iraq&#8217;s two main Shi&#8217;ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala yesterday, killing at least 62 people and wounding nearly 130, six weeks before a historic election. Both bombs, which went off about two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}