Attack in Baghdad Leaves 28 Dead
By Mary Beth Sheridan and Qais Mizher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
BAGHDAD, Nov. 10 -- For years, as car bombs rocked Baghdad, a wall of three-foot-high concrete barriers closed off the road next to Imad Karim's restaurant in a northern district.
Walls define much of this historic city -- slabs of concrete erected by U.S. soldiers or residents that have turned neighborhoods into mazes aimed at frustrating attackers. Only recently, as security improved, did someone wedge open the barriers by Karim's Abu Wael restaurant. No one noticed when someone drove a white Volkswagen Passat through the opening and parked.
At about 8 a.m. Monday, explosives in the Passat's trunk detonated, just as a minibus packed with 20 people passed by on the busy road on the other side of the barriers, witnesses and U.S. officials said. The minibus was engulfed in flames. Minutes later, two roadside bombs exploded near the mangled Passat, showering the occupants of Abu Wael and another nearby restaurant with shards of glass and blowing in their corrugated-metal roofs, according to witnesses.
At least 28 people died and more than 50 were injured, according to Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari, a Defense Ministry spokesman, speaking on the al-Arabiya satellite network. The U.S. military put the toll far lower, at five dead.
"There is no security," Karim said glumly as he stood in front of his restaurant amid twisted metal window grates and gray rubble. "We only hear about security from the TV stations."
The U.S. military says a spate of recent bombings in Baghdad has not altered the broader trend: Violence is down dramatically in Iraq from last year. There are about four attacks a day in the capital, compared with 24 in December, according to the military's count.
"These things tend to ebb and flow over time," said Brig. Gen. William Grimsley of the 4th Infantry Division, the deputy commanding general for U.S. forces in the Baghdad area.
But Monday's bombing shows how fragile the security gains still are. And it is a sign that it may be a long time before Baghdad's walls finally come down.
The walls started going up after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The American military set up 12-foot-high, six-ton blast walls to protect its installations and other sensitive locations. Gradually, concrete barriers closed off roads near government buildings, mosques, police stations, universities.
Within neighborhoods, residents started blocking streets themselves -- using oil drums, tires, chunks of concrete, even logs -- to limit access. In 2007, the wall-building accelerated as the U.S. military enclosed entire neighborhoods as part of its counterinsurgency campaign, strictly controlling movement in and out.
The military credits the walls with playing a big role in reducing violence.
Attackers "can't do mischief in one neighborhood and simply run to the other," said Capt. Brett Walker, of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division, at a recent briefing on the military's wall efforts. Bombers also cannot get close to many crowded sites, such as markets and mosques, where they have wreaked havoc in the past.
Recently, the military began taking down a few barriers in once-dangerous parts of Baghdad, as part of reconciliation efforts it is encouraging among neighborhoods.
The message to residents is clear, Walker said: "A return to normalcy is right around the corner -- with their will and cooperation."
But there was no sign of normalcy Monday morning in the al-Kasrah district of northern Baghdad, which has a Shiite majority but many Sunni residents. A few hours after the blast, Karim, 38, the restaurant owner, was still tense and angry as he picked up chunks of rubble.
Most of the victims were minibus passengers, including three children and several women, he said. Two of his customers and one worker were killed when the explosions shattered windows and sent pieces of roof cascading onto diners eating breakfast, he said.
Col. John Hort, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, arrived at the scene after the blast and vowed to arrest those responsible. He also had a suggestion: adding more blast walls to the area.
In a later statement, Hort called the bombing "a despicable, cowardly act of terrorism." The U.S. military said in a news release that the Sunni extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq was the likely culprit.
U.S. forces have been aggressively targeting bombing networks. On Monday, they captured a man who allegedly was involved in planning an Oct. 12 attack on a market in southern Baghdad that killed at least five people, according to a military statement.
The man, believed to be a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was seized in a house in western Baghdad where soldiers discovered numerous detonators and blasting caps, the release said.
Also Monday, in the central city of Baqubah, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a checkpoint near the city market manned by U.S.-backed neighborhood guards known as Sons of Iraq, police said.
Four people were killed, including a local Sons of Iraq leader, said Col. Raghib al-Umairy, a spokesman for the provincial police. Among the 15 injured was a 13-year-old boy.
Faisal al-Shimmari, 33, a Sons of Iraq guard at the checkpoint, said a woman walked toward the leader, Ahmad al-Azzawi. "She was pretending to ask for help, and in moments she blew herself up and killed our commander," he said.
A Washington Post special correspondent in Baqubah contributed to this report.
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