50 Suspects Held in Connection to Najaf Bombing

NAJAF, Iraq, Dec. 20 -- Iraqi authorities have detained about 50 suspects in connection with a devastating car bombing Sunday that killed scores of people in one of the country's most sacred Shiite Muslim cities, officials said Monday after funerals attended by thousands of residents.

The blast in Najaf was one of two that tore through crowds in Shiite holy cities Sunday, apparently targeting members of Iraq's majority religious group. At least 66 people were reported killed and more than 180 wounded in the bombings in Najaf and Karbala. Most of the casualties occurred in Najaf when a car bomb exploded during a funeral procession. The attacks were seen by many Iraqis as a harbinger of the carnage promised by insurgents ahead of the country's Jan. 30 elections.

After funerals for the latest victims in Najaf, provincial governor Adnan Zurufi told a news conference Monday that 50 suspected insurgents have been arrested and are undergoing interrogation. He said some are from Najaf and others from outside the city. At least one is a citizen of another Arab country, he said.

Najaf's police chief, Maj. Ghalib Jazaeri, said the detainees included people with links to Syria and Iran, the Associated Press reported.

"The police arrested some elements who confessed that they have links with the Syrian intelligence . . . and a person who confessed he had links with Iranian intelligence since 1995," Jazaeri said, according to AP.

Officials did not immediately provide further details of the arrests.

The bombings in Najaf and Karbala appeared designed to inflict the greatest number of civilian casualties possible, the explosives detonating within walking distance of the tombs of Shiite Islam's most revered saints. With macabre effect, the blasts demonstrated yet again that insurgents, usually operating in Baghdad and Sunni regions in central Iraq, could extend their deadly reach into the heartland of Iraq's Shiite majority.

The scenes that ensued have become all too familiar in Iraq: Streets were strewn with the twisted and charred wreckage of cars, as crowds wandered along the destruction with dazed, uncomprehending looks. Chunks of concrete were ripped from buildings and hurled onto ground soaked in rain, blood and cinders, framed in gray, stormy skies.

"These attacks aim to destroy the country and the holy sites. This is terrorism against Shiites," said Fadhil Salman, 41, the owner of the Ghufran Hotel in Najaf. "They want to foil the elections, but this won't deter us."

The bombings were the bloodiest episodes on a grim day across Iraq Sunday.

On one of Baghdad's most dangerous streets, about 30 gunmen ambushed a car carrying workers of the Iraqi electoral commission, dragged them into the street and then killed them. In a separate incident, previously unknown groups threatened to kill 10 Iraqis they said worked for a U.S. contractor. Images of the blindfolded men, in civilian clothes and seated before a wall, were broadcast on Arab satellite television.

The blasts in Najaf and Karbala occurred about an hour apart. The first tore through a crowded bus station in Karbala at 1:30 p.m., burning at least seven minibuses and shattering windows along the street. At least 14 people were killed and 50 were wounded, said Ali Hussein, a doctor at the city's Husseini Hospital.

Witnesses reached by telephone said body parts littered the streets. Firefighters tried to put out blazes ignited by the blast, and sirens echoed through the streets as ambulances ferried victims to hospitals. There were conflicting reports about whether the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.

The explosives detonated about 300 yards from the twin, gold-domed shrines of Hussein and Abbas, the destination of hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims from Iraq, Iran and elsewhere. A police training academy was in the vicinity, news agencies said. Such sites have been common insurgent targets.