21 Shiites from McCain’s Market Killed
3 US Troops Killed Massive Truck Bomb at Kirkuk
Remember that Baghdad market visited on Sunday by Senator John McCain to show how calm things are? James Hider of the London Times writes, , “21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market [Shurja] visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.”
Kirk Semple of the NYT bothered to actually interview the merchants at Shurja market. They were surprised at Indiana congressman Mike Pence’s characterization of it as “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime . . .”
Yeah, those Indianans are hard core. Why, they’ll kidnap a couple dozen Methodists at the outdoor market, blindfold them, drill holes in them, expose them to acid, and dump them on Main Street just before dawn to get a rise out of the police patrolmen when they show up for coffee and donuts.
If I were from Indiana, I’d be rather angry about Pence’s comparison, and would vote him out in the next election.
In Kirkuk, Hider of the Times says, a huge truck bombing killed 14 and wounded 130, many of them children at a nearby school. [Late reports put the death toll at 15]:
‘ Buthayna Mahmud, 10, was horrified to see the bodies of her classmates strewn on the ground in flames. “Everyone I saw was wearing the blue school uniform drenched with blood. Some of their dresses were torn. I only saw fire. I heard teachers and students shouting,” she said. “When we rushed out of the school, we saw pupils on the ground, some of them burning.” “We were at the last lesson and we heard the explosion. I saw two of my classmates sitting near the window. They fell on the floor, drenched in blood,” said Naz Omar, a girl in the fifth form. “They could not speak. I was terrified. I said, ‘God is Great. I need my mother. I need my father’.” ‘
The Kirkuk bombing comes in the context of rising tensions over the Kurdish plan to annex the province, over the objections of the Turkmen and Arabs, as Iraqslogger notes. This source also discusses dissent inside the Sadr Movement over Muqtada’s decision to cooperate with the new security plan.
Iraqi guerrillas killed 3 US troops on Monday.
Reuters reports other political violence in Iraq on Monday.
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