Big truck go boom.
I gave myself over to the Bard and the girlfriend and, hence, I am a little late with what I view as the big story of the weekend — the bloody carnage surrounding a tanker truck blown up by a suicide bomber. CNN.com reported yesterday as follows:
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a propane fuel tanker parked near a gas station south of Baghdad Saturday evening, killing at least 60 and wounding as many as 100 people, police sources said.
The massive blast occurred in the center of Musayyib along a dangerous stretch in Babil province known as the Triangle of Death about 45 miles south of the capital. Musayyib is predominantly Shiite.
The explosion destroyed a neighboring apartment complex and damaged a Shiite mosque and surrounding businesses, police said.
The tanker entered Musayyib after being searched at the city’s entrance and parked at the city center, according to police. The bomber, strapped with an explosive vest, approached the tanker and detonated. Police are calling it a coordinated attack, suggesting the tanker’s driver was part of the attack.
Today, CNN upped the death toll to at least 90. As I am a day late and a dollar short on my coverage, I’d like to take a look at the fallout of the terror strike.
First, let’s look at a follow-on piece from the Los Angeles Times.
Blast Designed for Maximum Casualties, Officials Say
The claim of that headline, as the terrorists certainly are not using “smart” technology and most assuredly ply their trade in blood, seems practically too obvious to even be stated. Anyway, according to the story, the collusion of the truckdriver is confirmed.
On Sunday, law-enforcement officials in Baghdad and Hillah, the provincial capital, said the massive explosion that killed at least 90 Iraqis and wounded more than 150 at about the time of sunset prayers was part of an elaborate insurgent operation designed to inflict maximum civilian casualties.
A police official in Baghdad said the license plate of a gasoline tanker detonated by a suicide bomber matched one stolen by armed bandits a few days earlier on the road between the capital and Fallujah. Police in Hillah said the suicide bomber, who was on foot, set off his explosives as soon as the tanker’s driver fled the scene.
“These people harbor satanic ideas,” said the spokesman for the provincial police headquarters, a captain who asked to be identified by his nickname, “Abu Hareth,” for security reasons. “It was just like hell itself.”
Any pretense that innocent civilians were not the intended targets must quickly fall by the wayside.
The bomber apparently was sitting at a cafe along a traffic circle in the town’s main square, sidling up to the truck as it stopped across the roundabout from the People of Musayyib Hosseiniyeh, a Shiite mosque. Several witnesses said they spotted the driver escaping moments before the explosion.
“The explosive belt is very hard for us to counter,” said Wathiq Jawad, a police detective in Hillah. “We cannot detect it.”
Samir Ibrahim, a 30-year-old computer engineer, was surfing the Internet at a cafe in the square, a lively if modest commercial center of two- and three-story buildings filled with private doctors’ offices, outdoor clothing stalls, coffee and tea houses, pastry shops, ice vendors and cell-phone retailers.
Ibrahim escaped the bombing unharmed but lost three cousins.
“The truck was full of gas, and fire was floating in the air and burned the buildings that were close,” he said. “Most of the people who were there were shop owners and women who had come to shop or see a doctor.”
The explosion charred a 300-foot black circle in the town center, damaging nearby buildings. As the fire erupted, mortar rounds landed near the police station and the hospital, adding to the chaos.
Ibrahim watched in horror as men, women and children burned to death in a blast that destroyed 20 cars and torched ramshackle houses.
“A little one was only 3 months old, and she did not make it,” he said.
The terrorist sat at a cafe before the attack and had time to ponder those who would be his victims. He most assuredly knew that he was not striking a blow against “occupying infidels” but instead Iraqi women and children, shopkeepers and workers. To top it off, the bastards followed up by targeting the overwhelmed hospital with mortars.
That said, I do want to point out a little needlessly negative spin in the Times piece as they look at the security aftermath.
No fewer than eight checkpoints — manned by various teams of Iraqi Army, Iraqi police, Iraqi highway patrol and U.S. soldiers — dotted the 40-mile road from Baghdad to central Musayyib, which was closed to vehicular traffic.
Such measures offered little protection against suicide bombers on foot like the one who struck Musayyib.
While true that these efforts may offer little enhanced protection against suicide bombers, they do limit the opportunity for the bomber to utilize a stolen tanker truck for enhanced devastation. That is the weapon that made the Musayyib strke so horrific.
Now let’s turn to blast’s aftermath on Iraqi politics.
After Iraq attacks, calls for militias grow
A devastating blast south of Baghdad, the latest in a series of suicide attacks aimed at undermining Iraq’s US-mentored political process, has raised the temperature between Sunni and Shiite political factions and revived dormant questions about the effectiveness of government security forces.
[…]
Shiite parliamentarian Khudayr al-Khuzai called on the government Sunday to “bring back popular militias” to protect vulnerable Shiite communities. “The plans of the interior and defense ministries to impose security in Iraq have failed to stop the terrorists,” he told the National Assembly.
[…]
Following Mr. Khuzai’s outraged speech in parliament, other members of the Shiite-led majority bloc said they also wanted militias to help stop such attacks. “We need militias to provide protection,” said Saad Jawad Kandil, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a key party in the Shiite-led alliance that dominates parliament.
SCIRI controls the roughly 7,000-strong Badr militia force, which frequently has been accused by Sunni leaders of torturing and killing innocent Sunni civilians, including clerics. Before the government’s formation, the multiparty Shiite alliance called loudly for a purge of police and Army units, in order to root out Baathist officers allegedly still loyal to the fallen regime of Saddam Hussein. But Sunnis and Kurds fear that a move by SCIRI to fill that hole with Badr militia. This would effectively ensure control of the security apparatus by SCIRI, which has ties to Iran.
Despite claims of abuse against Sunnis, the Badr militia has reportedly been helpful previously in securing urban neighborhoods. During the Jan. 30 elec- tions, Shiite militiamen, through informal agreements with the Iraqi provisional government, helped Iraqi and coalition security forces set up barricades to defend polling stations. Meanwhile, militias controlled by Kurdish parties, which collaborated with US forces during the 2003 invasion, continue to play a key security role in northern Iraq.
There are obviously short-term plusses and long-term minuses surrounding the existence of local militias already in place. The call for the creation of more such militant organizations is irresponsible and damaging to actual progress being made. Early U.S. plans acknowledged the dangers of such bands.
Under US-drafted provisional legislation, nongovernmental militias are meant to be either disbanded or integrated into the government security apparatus as part of Iraq’s transition to democracy and rule of law. But with no side willing to give up its firepower, the militia issue appears to have been sidestepped during current talks aimed at producing a permanent constitution.
Should Mr. Khuzai get his way in the call for an increase in local militias, he would be hearkening for a brief increase in security that would hearken to an actual rule on the ground by warlords and almost certainly lead to civil war. I understand the emotion of the moment, but it is irresponsible of a parliamentarian to make steps that would actually guaranty far greater bloodshed by his countrymen.
The U.S. should, without stepping on the actual sovereignty of the new Iraqi government, put pressure to prevent such a reactionary move and its predictable consequences.
