BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 -- A car bombing killed 29 people north of Baghdad Sunday morning when attackers pulled up in a vehicle alongside a bus carrying Iraqi National Guardsmen and detonated explosives. The violence spurred angry accusations between the city's Shiite Muslim population and its Sunni Muslim police force about who was responsible.
The U.S. military said 18 of the dead were members of the 203rd National Guard Battalion, a largely homegrown force that was traveling a familiar route to a base in Balad, where the attack was carried out.
Iraqi men gather in a mosque in Balad, north of Baghdad, to mourn those killed when a bomb exploded beside a bus carrying Iraqi National Guardsmen. Eighteen of the dead were attached to a largely homegrown battalion.
(Reuters TV)
|
|
Witnesses and a doctor said the remaining fatalities were civilian bystanders and the attackers, two men driving a Toyota Land Cruiser painted in the orange-and-white pattern of an Iraqi taxi.
The attack left a grim air in the city. Brothers and fathers claimed the torn bodies of the young guardsmen, pulled from what remained of their bus. Shopkeepers closed their doors.
But the mood turned angry as residents in the overwhelmingly Shiite town began asking who was to blame for the attack. A crowd formed and made its way to police headquarters. The demonstrators shouted accusations toward a police force that is staffed largely by Sunnis from a nearby town.
"They are from the Sunni Triangle, and because we are Shiite and live in peace, they want to bring terrorism to this place," said Abu Saad, 60. "They are 100 percent involved in this."
Residents accused the police of allowing the attackers to pass a police checkpoint. There were rumors that the attack was somehow connected to a curfew announced, then withdrawn, the night before.
The police chief denied the charges.
"What the people said is not true," said Naseer Hussein, 36. "We understand what they feel. It's normal. For every action there is a reaction."
Hussein defended the operations at the checkpoints.
"We know which cars we should search," Hussein said. "We know the strangers from the non-strangers."
But Shiite residents remained unconvinced, and several insisted that the attack was an effort to thwart plans for national elections on Jan. 30.
"This operation, they did it to stop the elections," said Haider Abdulzahra Mehdi, 32, standing beside the body of his brother, Abbas, in a Shiite community center in Balad. His head was bowed in grief, his eyes rimmed in red.
"All the people of Balad will be sure to go through with this election on time no matter what happens," he said, then repeated the sentence for emphasis.
