Truck bomb kills 102 in Baghdad
Last Updated: Saturday, February 3, 2007 | 10:49 AM ET
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/02/03/iraq.html
At least 102 people were killed and more than a 200 wounded in a market bombing in Baghdad, police and hospital officials said Saturday.
A man driving a food truck detonated explosives in the busy Sadriyah shopping district of central Baghdad, destroying stores and stalls.
Initial reports said more than 50 people died in the bombing, but the death toll later doubled.
The blast was the latest in a series of attacks against commercial targets in the capital as insurgents seek to maximize the number of people killed ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security sweep.
Most of the bombings have targeted predominantly Shia neighbourhoods.
The latest attack comes a day after the release of a U.S. report that described an increasingly dangerous situation in Iraq.
The report by the National Intelligence Council, representing the views of all 16 U.S. spy agencies, said "civil war" is an accurate description of "key elements of the conflict."
"I do not see anything so far in the report that suggests the president's new plan is a winning strategy that protects America's national interest," said Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada.
Yet Bush administration officials said the intelligence assessment reinforced their view that the United States cannot leave Iraq.
At a news conference on Friday, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he knew of no one on Capitol Hill who believed that leaving the country in chaos "would have anything other than very serious and negative consequences for the United States and for the region."
The report suggested that a pullout of U.S. troops could draw Iraq's neighbours into the violence.
With files from the Associated Press
Last Updated: Saturday, February 3, 2007 | 10:49 AM ET
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/02/03/iraq.html
At least 102 people were killed and more than a 200 wounded in a market bombing in Baghdad, police and hospital officials said Saturday.
A man driving a food truck detonated explosives in the busy Sadriyah shopping district of central Baghdad, destroying stores and stalls.
Initial reports said more than 50 people died in the bombing, but the death toll later doubled.
The blast was the latest in a series of attacks against commercial targets in the capital as insurgents seek to maximize the number of people killed ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security sweep.
Most of the bombings have targeted predominantly Shia neighbourhoods.
The latest attack comes a day after the release of a U.S. report that described an increasingly dangerous situation in Iraq.
The report by the National Intelligence Council, representing the views of all 16 U.S. spy agencies, said "civil war" is an accurate description of "key elements of the conflict."
"I do not see anything so far in the report that suggests the president's new plan is a winning strategy that protects America's national interest," said Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada.
Yet Bush administration officials said the intelligence assessment reinforced their view that the United States cannot leave Iraq.
At a news conference on Friday, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he knew of no one on Capitol Hill who believed that leaving the country in chaos "would have anything other than very serious and negative consequences for the United States and for the region."
The report suggested that a pullout of U.S. troops could draw Iraq's neighbours into the violence.
With files from the Associated Press
